Project Peacekeeper
by Experimentals
Summary: This is a first draft of an idea I had to write.


**The peace keeper project.**

**Chapter 1 Good ideas, good intentions?**

**CE, 75 New Heliopolis construction yard.**

It had been 4 years since the Heliopolis colony was destroyed during the first war between the Atlantic federation and the Plants but now with the help of the Plant council and the neutral nations Orb was rebuilding their former colony in space. Even though everything was still in the early stages of building the space port was already finished where supply ships from all over the place could dock. Since the end of the last war Orb and the neutral nations have formed an alliance to make sure they would no longer get involved in another war between the Federation and the Plants. By combining their resources they were able to form an improved military alliance as well as an economic alliance but still they were nothing more than a minor faction if war would flare up again. The Plants decided the moment the plans for a new colony in space by the neutral nations were announced that they would actually supply them with the resources necessary to rebuild the station since the previous colony was destroyed by their own forces. The Federation on the other hand sent out engineers to help for the rebuild since they felt they were also responsible for what happened. If they hadn't build the gundams there the colony would still exist. It's in these days of cooperation that the political leaders of the earth sphere secretly gathered near the space port aboard the Eternal.

"I welcome you all here aboard my spaceship" Lacus started her welcoming words "Even though this used to be a Zaft vessel all of you decided to come here anyway. I thank you for coming. The reason why we are gathered here is because the time has come to look at the future with a different perspective. The past few years negotiations between the Federation,the neutral alliance and the Plants have lead to less tensions between the main military factions on earth and in space but we are still a long way from achieving total peace. Therefore I want to make you a proposal which we can all benefit from over time."

"Well if that proposal brings a next step in the peace process I'm willing to listen" Cagali replied as the spokeswoman for the alliance of neutral nations.

"There is always room for some improvement on the treaties signed already." the chairwoman of the Plant council added while she turned her head to face the president of the Federation who just nodded wondering what the pink haired girl had up her sleeve this time. Lacus then sat down at the table as she tried to find the right words to tell them what she wanted to propose.

"Well in the past wars between naturals en coordinators were always stopped by people who were either neutral or people who stepped away from the military faction they belonged to. Now my idea is to form a unit comprised of people who are willing to break their bonds with their military and start keeping the peace as an independent force. Right now some Orb officers have teamed up with Zaft and Federation officers in order to keep an eye on all factions on earth as well as in space. They have codenamed themselves the Peace Keepers but they are only a small number of people and there is too much space to cover in order to be effective enough to actually stop a war before it even starts. Their goal is to find the embers that might ignite a new war and put them out before it actually goes seriously wrong. I hope you understand what I am saying." Lacus made her proposal looking at everyone at the table.

"This all sounds nice but who will be leading this unit once it 's formed? And how will you get the means necessary to take the actions needed?" the chairwoman asked Lacus who already knew there would be questions she probably had no immediate answer to.

"Not to mention the kind of people you would need to be part of this unit. You will need people with a loyalty to only the world instead of a nation. How many people like that do you think to find?" the president brought the most important point across.

"Another question is, where would their headquarters have to be? On earth? In space? Or both?" Cagali wondered already guessing the answer as she looked outside at the construction yard in space.

"Well as for the last question, we were hoping that we could build a small base alongside the new colony here. We won't interfere with day to day operations at the colony, that is your problem Miss Cagali. As for the manpower question we scan for the right people ourselves and once we found a suitable candidate that person will be invited to join the Peace Keepers. As for leading this unit that is actually the point we have to discuss here. At the moment because it still is a small unit we all have a saying in what we are going to do when embers have been found but once this unit grows into a small army there should an overall leader. The problem is since we are an independent force we want to split the leadership up in two parts. First there will be the political wing to which I will belong and the military wing who will decide over the military actions. But the two leaders for these sections decide if they will intervene or tell the nation where we found troubling evidence to take care of it themselves. So in other words we can decide that you take care of things yourselves. This way we don't have to grow a large army of Peace Keepers in order to stop every possible conflict in the early stages. Have you any suggestions on who should be the leaders of the different factions and we also want someone who should be the supreme leader over the entire unit, the face of the unit as it were." Lacus answered the questions of the delegates present.

"As a matter of fact I believe you would be a suitable political leader," the Plant chairwoman replied "but as far as a military leader to many come to mind in order to nominate. My first choice would be commander Waltfelt but I don't think the Federation would agree to that."

"You 're right we 'd rather give that title to captain Ramius since she is a former Alliance officer although I think the neutral states rather want someone else" the president countered the chairwoman.

"I have had the honour of fighting with both officers but I also know they have no interest in taking on this responsibility. I would propose to nominate lieutenant-commander Zala since he fought both in Zaft as well as in the Orb forces. He is also a great negotiator and that's what this job demands." Cagali told them.

" Why don't we just vote on the nominated candidates" Lacus proposed as she looked at every one present who nodded at her with a smile on their face "Well then as military commander first nominee commander Waltfelt who would like to Vote for him..." she noticed only the chairwoman raised her hand.

"second nominee captain Ramius" The president of the federation and Cagali raised their hands.

"third nominee lieutenant Zala..." Every one raised their hands.

"Well that 's settled then Lieutenant Athrun Zala becomes the first leader of the military wing of the peace keepers now for the political wing are there any other people you 'd like to nominate besides me." Lacus wondered as she looked at the people at the table but every one of them shook their heads since they felt that she was the right person for the job since she had been negotiating with all the factions after the war in order to get them all to sign a treaty to stop the fighting. And even though it was still a fragile peace at the moment they all made a serious effort to still go ahead and if the Peace keepers could help along the way Lacus should be the one to lead the political wing.

"Well I accept then my first act as the peace keeper political leader is to nominate my candidate as the Chief Peace Keeper, lieutenant-commander Kira Yamato." she decided to move forward as she got interrupted by Cagali.

"Don't you mean commander Kira Yamato. He recently got promoted or didn't he tell you?"

"We have been busy lately trying to get this idea out in the open." Lacus apologised as she smiled at the others who started to laugh.

"Actually I don't see a problem with him since he used to fight on our side during the great war between the coordinators and us." the president approved him.

"Well he is also a coordinator so I see no problem." the chairwoman decided to agree with the president.

"Then we make it unanimous since he is an Orb citizen too" Cagali put every doubt aside.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't he also your brother?" the president asked her.

"According to the files I found in my father's safe he is. What's even more we share the same DNA. The only difference between me and him is the fact that he had been genetically modified whereas I was conceived the natural way." Cagali answered the question.

" Doesn't that frustrate you every now and then." the chairwoman asked Cagali.

"Why should it, we both have certain abilities we share but he is better in one area of expertise where I am better in an other area. Besides I have to lead a nation, a nation he swore to protect once he had chosen to fight." Cagali let go of her control for a moment but she got her point across. The delegates decided to put everything that was decided in that meeting into an official treaty between them. They also wanted to put some basic outlines on paper about the role of the Peace keepers within the entire Earth sphere. As soon as they had left Lacus went out to meet with Kira who was on the bridge with commander Waltfelt discussing the latest military reports. He turned around the moment Lacus entered and as soon as he saw her smiling face he knew that the idea they all had been working on had been approved by the strongest military factions on Earth.

**AC 198, Earth Sphere United Nations L1 colony**

It was late in the afternoon when a young man approached Heero with an envelope which came from the president's office. He thanked the man as he opened it. After he read the letter he looked at the young man again and asked him to bring him to Earth. The man immediately called for a taxi and Heero got in. He looked even more serious than usual but the young man didn't seem to mind the former Gundam pilot's mood.

**AC 198, Earth Sphere United Nations Preventer headquarters**

Relena was having a meeting with Lady Une about the last incident reports on the colonies since Relena had another negotiation with the L3 colony group. While they were discussing the safety measures Lady Une's phone rang. She picked up and after a few words she handed the phone to Relena. Relena answered the phone and was told that she was ordered to report to the president. She hung up and apologised to Une for leaving so suddenly but she would come back later that day.

**AC 198, Presidential palace.**

When Relena entered the palace she saw Heero looking at an old painting which made no sense to her. She walked up to Heero wondering how he had been the past few years since they hadn't seen each other after the Barton uprising.

"Hello Heero, how are you these days?" Relena greeted him

"I'm fine,you?" Heero replied

"Busy but I'm glad to see you again" she said as she felt her heart pounce against her chest. She still loved the young man she looked at. His face seemed softer than the last time she saw him but she figured that the life he was leading now had made him more at ease than the life he lead before.

"Why are you so interested in that painting?" She asked

"Well actually when I look at it I start to wonder why today 's painters don't try to paint something like this. Even though this is a reproduction of the original, which is hanging in the museum of 20th century arts, it is magnificent how the painter captured the horrors of war in it." he answered.

"What painting is this?" Relena wondered as she looked at it again and started to see what Heero was seeing.

"This painting is called 'Guernica' and it was painted by Pablo Picasso. He painted it after the civil war in Spain which happened during 1930's old calender. This painting is almost 400 years old, well not the one hanging here. This one is actually reproduced in AC 01 as a reminder of the era we were supposed to leave behind as we were expanding our living room into space. Unfortunately recent history has proven otherwise ." Heero said with a sad face as he looked at Relena who also remembered the year of hell they went through together.

"Maybe everybody in the world should take a good look at this painting." Relena said as she turned back to the painting. Suddenly a door opened and Heero and Relena were asked to step in. As soon as they entered the president's office the door closed and all the other people in the room were asked to leave them since he wanted this meeting to be private. The president the opened a panel behind his desk and pushed a few buttons. Heero recognised the system the president was using since he had developed it himself for the Preventers and wondered how he got a hold on one of those.

" I'm delighted to see the both of you accepted my invitation. Sorry that it was in such short notice but I haven't got that much time and I want to propose something to the both of you. You may not like what I'm about to ask you but I fear we are going to need this some day hopefully in the far future or even better never. But I am a realist and we do need to get this right." the President greeted them.

"Is that why you are making sure no one can listen in on our conversation?" Heero asked.

"If the wrong people hear about this we might be heading to a new war and I want to make sure it doesn't happen. You do know what this system does, don't you?" the president said as he pointed to the panel.

"I created it myself so I know what it can do and I can also get in if I want to or when Lady Une asks me to. How did you actually get it?" Heero asked.

"I asked Lady Une to install it here once she had access to it at the time so we could discuss Preventer business in private but now we need to talk about something more secret. I hope the two of you will hear me out first before you actually comment on it." he answered as he looked at the two young adolescents in front of him "you see the Preventers are doing a fine job keeping the peace but somehow I have the feeling that it wouldn't be enough some day. Especially with the ban on armed mobile suits within the Earth sphere borders. Up until now most mobile suits and armaments have been found and stashed away safely for dismantlement. Well more exactly the suits are being disarmed and put to use as mining or building suits whereas the weapons are destroyed or sent to Mars. But I can't help looking at the future and still fear there might still be some organisation trying to build new armed mobile suits and use them against us so I want a secret mobile suit force build somewhere far from Earth. The force should be there waiting for the eventuality that a mobile suit war might break out and the Preventers are unable to stop them. My sincerest wish is that we are building them to rust up over time but one can never know since the future can't be predicted. I'm hoping that the two of you would be the ones to take on this task and lead this unit as you both see fit. No one else may have knowledge about this while I take this secret to the grave. You see I'm dying from a disease I picked up as a young man. According to my doctors I only have a few months to live and that is why I'm proposing it now since I won't be able to tell anyone and you probably have to think about it first but I hope you will tell me on my death bed that you will accept this responsibility to keep the peace when the Preventers are no longer capable themselves."

"What kind of mobile suits did you have in mind?" Relena asked even though she had an idea where this was heading.

"He wants a Gundam force." Heero answered her question "And in all honesty Mr President I do have to think about taking on this responsibility and don't get your hopes up too high since I may decline after all. I want to discuss this with Relena first somewhere else and see how we are going to do it if we decide to go along with it. If you don't mind we like to go now since we also have other business to attend to but you will get an answer before you leave us."

The president thanked them and let them leave. Heero offered Relena a lift back to the Preventer headquarters which she accepted. Once in the car Heero pulled out a suitcase and removed a laptop from it after some typing and clicking Heero started the engine.

"The president has a point," Heero started the conversation "if some day there would be a mobile suit force that the Preventers aren't able to find before it attacks we are facing quite a problem but I don't know if Gundams are the answer to that problem."

"On the other hand, We don't need to build an army of Gundams to stop this possible threat. I think that the Gundams we knew would be more than enough and if the Preventers still have resources to fight back then it would be more than enough to stop any possible threat. It's not as if we have to act every time there is a problem. If the Preventers can handle it we can decide to keep the suits locked up where they are." Relena continued "Although I hope it will never get to that. I still believe in the ideals my father raised me with. To achieve and keep the peace through negotiation. Then there wouldn't be any need for weapons any way."

"If Dorothy would be here she would say there are still enough people who would rather fight then talk. When you look at humanity's history at has been a struggle from the day we started to walk the Earth. First we fight to survive nature, then we started fighting over territory ending up fighting over something fleeting like power. Fighting is within our nature, no matter how much we want to deny that fact. The only difference is how we fight. You like to fight with words which is the ideal solution since I never heard of people dying during a discussion."

"Well there are records of people getting a heart attack during a very lively discussion but never anything fatal. But you're right no one dies during discussions but when things get physical people do get hurt. I even had to run from a negotiation some time ago when a delegate of the L2 colony started a fight because every single proposition he made got shot down by the other delegates even though there were some good idea's he had but no one probably wanted to hear them. I was glad Duo was there to get me out."

"I heard about that, instead of restraining his own delegate he made the decision to get you out especially since all other body guards present turned the whole thing into a brawl fight. He really lives up to his word, he may run and hide but he never tells a lie. Although he sometimes bends the truth a little."

"Yes he does, but that's what makes him so charming. I hope Hilde realises what a good husband she has."

"She knows, unfortunately I wasn't able to attend their wedding but I made it up to them later."

"Hey, it wasn't your decision to go to Mars then. Lady Une wanted you to beef up Preventer security on Mars before Duo and Hilde announced their wedding. Zechs and Noin couldn't make it either because of that." Relena remembered the wedding on which Duo had cursed Une more than once.

"Well at least I got to see the birth of your niece" Heero smiled as he thought about the day Noin gave birth to Jessica Marquise.

"What Lu told me was that my big brother fainted during labour so you had to step in to stand beside her. You did a fine job there."

"I felt privileged to have seen new life being brought into this beautiful universe. And some day I hope to be a father myself but first I need to work out a few issues before I start thinking about that."

"What kind of issues?" Relena asked.

"Post War trauma's to be exact. I have taken your advise the last time we saw each other and looked for some help. I have formed this self help program in which people like me come together and talk about our experiences during the war. We help each other by talking about it and somehow find a way to forgive ourselves for all we did, for all the people we killed. I even contacted a psychologist who is specialised in this field to join us in these sessions. I hope we never get to experience a war again. Maybe that's why the president has proposed this idea of a secret mobile suit force to the two us." Heero started to realise the reasoning behind asking them and not someone more suited for the job.

"You think he wouldn't ask someone else if we decline taking on this task."

"When I looked into his eyes I saw genuine concern about the future and since he is dying he couldn't care less about what happens immediately after his death but maybe someday there might be a president who will make the mistake to start a war again and who knows what will happen then."

"And who will be the fighting sides?"

"The people of the Earth sphere against Mars most likely." Heero remembered how the wars on Earth had been brought to the Colonies.

"So in other words we need to keep this proposition in mind." Relena said as she started to feel bad about possibly betraying her own ideals.

"I know it will be a tougher decision for you than it is for me but maybe we can turn it in something more than just a military unit. You're a politician so I was thinking we could split this entire operation into several sections. You could be the leader of the political section while I take control over the military section. We should also have a research and development section which we could use to improve the Gundams but also create better means for the Preventers to do their job without our help. I could ask Dr J. to lead this section and then we should also do some trading since we need to fund this project ourselves and preferably off the grid. We could ask Quattre to help out with this since he has become a successful businessman over the past two years."

"We should also make sure that we have some entertainment for the people since we won't be close to Earth so maybe Trowa can help us out with that since he works in the entertainment business. But we also need someone to smuggle Gundanium in order to build the Gundams off the grid. Any ideas?" Relena started to ease into the idea Heero was proposing.

"Well Duo comes to mind, and as for Preventer info we could always turn to Wu Fei or Sally. We better keep Une in the dark until we are absolutely sure she can't compromise the operation. Maybe we also should ask Dorothy to keep an eye on the Rommefeller foundation since there are still some Dermail faction members who 'd like to spark things up again."

"Then there is the Kushrenada faction we should keep an eye on."

"We don't have to worry about them since most of them are enlisted with the Preventers and others have actually formed a political party hoping to form a sound opposition to your party. They agree with a number of your ideas but when it comes to defence issues your ideas aren't well liked by them so they already openly question the government's judgement on the current weapon restrictions. I tend to agree with them but too many weapons aren't good either but maybe after the elections next year you will find a way to compromise with them and ease up on the weapon restrictions a little."

"Actually that is not my department." Relena said but realised what Heero was asking her to do "but maybe I can swing it and become the next minister of defence...or I could ask Dorothy to join me during the election campaign. She could join the run from her own constituency and I'll try to make sure she'll become the next minister of defence so we can control the ministries we need to our own advantage. Although that could be difficult since she is a member of the Kushrenada faction."

"It seems like you caught on to my idea. The idea is in general to build a small colony which on the surface seems normal but underneath there is a military base ready for action when needed. Of course we will pick our own Preventer unit. No one outside may know what is really going on in the colony we are going to build. I also know where we are going to build it, in the asteroid belt."

"That would be an excellent idea since a lot of space ships can't manoeuvre that well within the belt."

"And we can set up an early warning system in case someone decides to spy on us" Heero started to smile at the idea of outsmarting a peace oriented government for a change.

**CE 75, Presidential Palace Atlantic Federation Earth.**

The president had just returned from parliament explaining why he had agreed to become a part in forming the Peace Keeper corps. It had been a long day but in the end most of the members in parliament agreed with him. They decided that this way there could be a way to even help the peace process along. As soon as he came into his office he poured himself a glass of bourbon and sat down behind his desk. When he had taken his first sip his intercom sounded so he put his glass down and answered.

"Yes what is it?" he asked.

"Mr President the minister of defence and the chief of Staff wish to discuss an urgent matter with you. Shall I let them in?" he heard his secretary.

"Off course, let them in." the president replied as he sighed.

As soon as the men had come in and had themselves settled he wondered what their problem would be with the peace keeper corps.

"Mr President we think we might have a problem in which we might need some outside help." the minister of defence began to explain the purpose of their visit "We discovered that there is an organisation called Omega Force working underground within various branches of our society seeking recruits for their plan to take over government and start a new campaign against the coordinators. This organisation is well funded and extremely good in hiding their tracks but somehow a young boy from the Plants had caught on to it through some communications with a friend he has here on Earth. We weren't able to determine if the father of this boy on Earth is just a sympathiser or an actual member of this organisation. But we did find out thanks to this man that the organisation exists. We should be grateful now that you agreed to the formation of the Peace Keeper corps since we could also need their help on finding these people and put a stop to their plans. We only want to ask them to find out where they are hiding and leave the rest up to us. In this way we can prove to them that we do want a lasting peace as well as the rest within the Earth sphere."

"I could try to contact them but they are also few in numbers and if this organisation is as well organised as you claim than we are already too late but nevertheless I will contact them and tell them to keep a close eye on this matter."

"We were already able to foil one of their plans Mr President." The chief of Staff started his explanation "We found a laboratory which we had no knowledge off but Logos must have kept it to themselves hoping that some day they might be able to use what they had there. It seems that there were more cybernetically enhanced humans they had created and some mobile suits as well for these...well... children to be accurate. They couldn't be any older then nine or ten at the moment but the way they are they can't be integrated in society. They are exactly like the last batch we got from them. They need to be regenerated and by this they lose all memory after regeneration. It seems as if we are stuck with taking care of them but maybe some scientist might find a way to help them although they could also be a very good team to help out with the mobile suits designed for them. These suits can't be handled by an average pilot since they are too sophisticated to be handled by any normal human beings and I feel uncomfortable to turn them over to the coordinators."

"I will see what I can do to make sure that won't happen but maybe if we turn them over to the Peace Keepers we might be able to use those children as Peace Keepers for our own side since they wouldn't have any loyalty to any force in this solar system. They would fight wherever they are told to. Actually they would make the perfect Peace Keepers." the president said as he saw the possibilities handed to him by this underground organisation. They unknowingly helped him to close a deal he had in mind for the Peace Keepers. But it was still too early to discuss that. He decided to send the men in his office on their way again and once they had left he sat down behind his computer where he sent a mail to Lacus asking for the help of the Peace Keepers.

**CE 75, Space aboard the Eternal.**

Lacus was looking through her files as Kira came in with another file in his hand. She looked up at him and sighed.

"More files? I can't barely keep up reading these." she said pointing at the large stack on her desk.

"Actually this was a mail sent to you by the president of the Federation which somehow ended up on my desk. I think you should read it." Kira said as he handed her the file. She quickly read it and then looked up with a surprised face.

"There is already an underground movement at work within the Federation to undermine the peace talks while we are still trying to hold on to this fragile peace. I think we should do whatever is necessary to find out what the plans of this organisation are and what we could do to stop them." Lacus told Kira who nodded with an earnest face.

"The trouble is that we are a bit too small to actually find a trace of them before someday they would decide to go on the offensive. We should first try to use our contacts within the Federation forces and the Zaft forces. As for the children they have found I would recommend they should be brought to Morgenroete. There we can have them examined and see to what extend we can help them to become somewhat normal human beings. As for the mobile suits... Tell them to maintain them and let Murue and Erica take a look at them so we can determine what to do with those. If they could be useful to us we will take them of their hands." Kira suggested to Lacus who agreed with a nod as she started typing a message to the President of the Federation.

**CE 75, Space aboard the Archangel.**

Captain Ramius and Commander LaFlaga were in the middle of unloading materials necessary to build the New Heliopolis colony as Commander Dacosta walked up to them.

"Hey Dacosta, what brings you here?" Mu asked as he looked at his colleague.

"Captain Ramius, Commander LaFlaga your presence is required on the Eternal. It seems there is a problem on Earth. The Chief Peace Keeper wants us all on the bridge." Dacosta said. They immediately walked over to his shuttle wondering what was going on now.

**CE 75, Space aboard the Voltaire.**

Commander Jewel and his friend Deearka were overlooking the maintenance of the mobile suits aboard the ship when they were recalled to the bridge.

"I wonder what's going on now." Deearka said as he floated to the bridge with Isaac.

"Especially since they asked for your presence as well." Isaac responded "You 're no longer a Zaft soldier any more since you moved to Orb and became a citizen there."

"This could mean only one thing, Peace Keeper business." Deearka told his friend.

"Absolutely." Isaac said as they entered the bridge.

"Commander, we got orders from Commander Yamato to join them at the New Heliopolis construction site. We could arrive there in twenty minutes at top speed." the Captain said as he looked at his superior officer.

"Make it so Captain. To the New Heliopolis construction site, full speed ahead." Isaac said as he jumped over to the space maps to see where they were at the moment.

**CE 75, Plant Council. **

The council members were discussing the formation of the Peace Keepers when council member Azalea Jewel was informed by one of her aids that the Voltaire had been ordered to go to the New Heliopolis construction site.

"Madam Chairwoman, I've just been informed that the Voltaire has been ordered by Commander Yamato to join them at New Heliopolis. It seems like this ship is already part of the Peace Keepers. I think they must have found out something that might trouble them otherwise I don't see why my son would leave his sector. He also asked the nearest ships to inform headquarters about his detour." Azalea informed the council as she started to get worried.

"I'm sure there is nothing to worry about since they might just be investigating a possible threat. They will inform us when they have concrete evidence of that. It will be a standard procedure to make sure that all sides involved will get a chance to prepare themselves for the worst." the Chairwoman said trying to put everyone present at ease. She was already informed by Lacus about what was going on on Earth a few minutes before Azalea got her information.

"Azalea, you should be proud of your son. At least he is part of something greater than Zaft. He may someday make a difference to help us keep the peace we know now."

**CE 75, Orb Union**

Cagali was discussing the details of the Peace Keeper operation with her fellow leaders of the nations who formed the neutral Alliance when her aid came in with an urgent message. Cagali looked at it and then she looked at the people at the table.

"I'm afraid there is some bad news from the Peace Keepers. The president of the Federation has found out about an underground organisation which has been able to elude every nation on this world and they could possibly start another war again. The Plant council has been informed as well but for the time being secrecy is advised until these people have been found. Now you have to excuse me because I'm asked to attend an urgent meeting with the Peace Keeper corps." Cagali informed them as she got up to leave the room.

"Excuse me but why are you asked to sit in on a meeting of them unless..." someone said as he looked at Cagali with widening eyes.

"Yes I'm a member of the Peace Keepers too. I am part of the political core. I was asked by them the moment the corps was approved." She said as she walked out.

**CE 75, New Heliopolis construction site.**

Athrun and colonel Kisaga were overlooking the construction site from a small platform in space enjoying the view. Athrun was looking at the plans in front of him as he was trying to figure out how his idea on the still to develop headquarters for the Peace Keeper corps could be build close to the colony.

"The way I figure, we can build the base in an hour glass design just like the Plants only smaller and only a part of it. Then we attach it to the colony with titanium beams that can be severed in case the colony would be attacked. The Morgenroete facility should be build the same way opposite to headquarters. We also should slow down the rotation speed of the colony to make sure that the gravity within the outer modules doesn't exceed 1g too much. If my calculations are right the rotation speed I have in mind would make the gravitation within the colony somewhere near 0.97g whereas the outer modules will have a gravitation of 1.14g which is close to normal at both sides." Athrun said as he looked at his design plans with Colonel Kisaga.

"Well I wouldn't mind being a bit lighter at the colony." the big man next to him said with a smile on his face.

"I thought you'd say that but you a re still a lean man compared to most of the people your age." Athrun replied.

"It takes a lot of training and watching out for what you eat to keep yourself in shape. I don't mind that because that makes me feel alive. The training I mean." Kisaga said as he looked around. In a distance he saw Chief engineer Erica Simmons float to them. Once she had reached them she told them their presence was wanted on the Eternal. They packed up their stuff and left for the Eternal.

**AC 198, Presidential palace.**

It had been three months since Heero and Relena had been asked to join the president to discuss his idea about forming a secret unit of mobile suits. Relena and Heero had discussed it a lot amongst themselves at first but as time went by they decided to go ahead and started to talk to the people they needed to get this operation going. They also decided on a name for the unit, the Peace Keepers. Heero was already working on the design of the colony but he had changed his idea of putting the mobile suits on the colony. He decided to build a hidden base somewhere within the asteroid belt whereas the colony would be build somewhere closer to the border of the belt near the inner planets. It would be somewhat visible to Earth but it's main purpose would still be a research and development colony with some mining facilities. The military headquarters would be build deep within the belt inside an asteroid so no one would actually look for a base there. Relena had made up some paperwork in which the president would sign over complete independence from all other forces. She also put on paper that no one involved with the project should be held accountable for breaking laws within the Earth sphere. Last but not least she wanted to make sure that once the unit was operational Lady Une would also be informed and sworn to secrecy about this operation. Lady Une was going to be the government's liaison to the Peace Keepers in the future. Now they had come to see the president to inform him of their decision. As they arrived they were immediately brought to the president by his aid.

"It's good to see the two of you again." the president said while was lying in his bed "I thought you had walked away to never tell me your decision but since you're here you probably wanted to make sure I was dying before informing me what you decided. I am hoping that you will be taking on the responsibility I offered to you. If you have decided not to well...it is no longer my problem, it's my successor's problem. I only asked the two of you because this project would be safest in your hands."

"We have decided to work on this project together with some close friends in order to keep it safe and in a few years your idea will be realised." Heero said as he held the man's hand.

"But we need you to sign a few documents for us giving us the freedom to do as we see fit and act independent from the Preventers and all other military forces left on Earth. We also need you to sign a document giving all of us immunity against prosecution for breaking whatever law we may be breaking in the future. I have the documents here and you may read them to see if you agree with them." Relena said as she handed him the documents. He read them and then he picked up the pen Relena had laid down on her file. He wrote down a few lines on the papers and then he signed them with a smile. He then handed the papers to Relena who put them away again.

"This will probably be one of the last acts I will do as your president but I'm glad the two of you have decided to see this idea through. I wish the both of you a happy and peaceful life, goodbye my friends." he said as he pushed a button. An aid came in and Heero and Relena said their goodbye's and left his room. Two days later they were sitting at Relena's place as they heard the news the president had died. Relena started to cry as Heero comforted her thinking about why a great man had to go too soon.

**CE 75, Space aboard the Archangel.**

Captain Ramius and Commander LaFlaga had been looking over the reports about this underground organisation who called themselves the Omega Force. As far as they could figure these people were the real power behind Logos and Blue Cosmos. The problem they actually had was that there was no way to find out who was part of it and who wasn't. Even though everyone in the unit and some trusted contacts did whatever was necessary to find out who these people are.

"You know Murue, this time I can't say I'm going to make the impossible possible since I haven't got a clue on how to do it. These guys are as slippery as an eel. When we think we are getting closer we just find another dead end. Or better put they closed up shop and moved elsewhere. No matter what we do they seem to be one or maybe more steps ahead of us." Commander LaFlaga said as he looked at the young woman next to him.

"Well on the other hand it was a good thing the Federation found the mobile suits we have in the launch bay although we don't know what to do with them. According to Kira and chief Simmons only these kids can fly them since these machines have been installed with a new kind of neural interface. The system can only be activated by those kids because one of the implants is an activation chip to the machine. Now we have them aboard our ship living here while we are doing to them what Logos had done to those three kids under your command a few years ago. We train them to pilot these machines." Captain Ramius told him.

"It's not exactly the same. We were able to give them a way to remember what they have been doing the past month. Those bio engineers and cybernetics engineers were able to find a way to back up their memories and upload it into a computer they can access at their own free will. They are able to lead an as normal as possible life now." Mu said as he turned around to look at lieutenant Asuka who had entered the bridge while he heard Commander LaFlaga's last comment.

"I agree with the commander," Shin said as he handed over his latest report on the progress of the kids "They remember everything but they are also learning to filter out the junk from the useful memories now. Right now they are taking classes just like normal kids would but with the difference that they would ace any test since they can download the information needed from their memory banks. Over time we may need to build a bigger computer for them or find another way to back up their memories. Especially Candy is too curious for my taste. Yesterday she was downloading information on their creation on the military net. She asked me if she was evil because she thought that since she was created be some evil geniuses that she also had to be. I told her that she wasn't responsible for her existence and that she could become whatever she wanted. She told me that she was created with the sole purpose of being used as a weapon and her machine is the keeper of her soul. But she said she liked the idea of being able to help us out once she is old enough to join us in battle. She hoped that one day she would use her mobile suit for something else than fighting."

"I actually feel sorry for them. They shouldn't be here, more precisely they should have been kids like any other kid." Murue sighed as she looked at the report.

"We all feel the same but somehow these children don't seem to mind their place in this universe." Shin said as he looked at the Captain.

"They seem to have developed some kind of coping mechanism for themselves." Mu told the both of them.

**Chapter 2 Rude Awakening.**

**AC 205, Yui residence Christmas eve.**

Heero was working in his office on his computer when Relena walked in wondering what he was still doing there when their guests were about to arrive. She smiled at her husband when he looked up at her with a smile.

"You know Heero, you are a bit of a workaholic these days. Off all evenings this was the evening I hoped you wouldn't be working." Relena said with a teasing voice.

"I'm sorry Relena but I just read a report from Dr J. He just finished the last improvements on the gundams. We now have nuclear powered machines which can't switched off now by some kind of nuke jamming device." Heero said as he switched off his computer and stood up. He then looked at his watch and then looked back at Relena with big eyes.

"Yes Heero it is almost time for our guests to arrive and you need to change your clothes" she said pointing at his T-shirt and jeans.

"I probably get myself a shave too." Heero said as he rubbed his bearded chin.

"Actually I like that small beard of yours. Why don't you leave it and let the others decide what they think about it. I always liked a man with a bit of hair on his face. The beard somehow fits you." Relena commented on his new look. Heero looked in the mirror he had hanging in his office and figured it wouldn't hurt to leave it as it was. If the people wouldn't like it he could still shave it off. He then left his office while Relena looked at him with a silent sigh. She then decided to go downstairs to see what her mother was up to. Once downstairs she found her mother in the dining room overlooking the table.

"Penny for your thoughts." Relena said as she entered.

"I was thinking about how much your father would have liked to have seen this. The entire family here together at one table." Mrs Dorlian said as she turned to her daughter.

"Well if you can call this a family gathering." Relena said pointing out the obvious.

"I know but it seems like the former Gundam pilots are like a family including your brother. Well he is the only real family you have left, besides your niece and nephew. Tonight for me everyone here is family." Relena's mother said as her daughter embraced her.

"You're right mum, everyone here tonight is family."

They were suddenly interrupted by the doorbell which made Relena walk to the door which her faithful servant Pagan opened. She saw her big brother walk in with a slight smile on his face. Relena looked at him for a second before running up to him. He caught her in his arms and held her closely.

"Merry Christmas Relena. It's good to see you again" Zechs said as he let go of her. He loved his little sister as much as she loved him. He then stepped aside to give his wife and children a chance to say hello.

"Hello aunt Relena, these are for you" Jessica said as she handed some paper flowers which Relena knew her niece had made herself. She accepted them with a smile as she looked around for a vase to but them into.

"Aunty Welena mewwy Chwistmas" little Robert said as he looked up to Relena.

"And a merry Christmas to you" Relena greeted the two year old boy and then looked up at Lucrezia who was holding the boy in her arms.

"Hi Relena, how are you?" Noin asked her sister-in-law.

"I'm fine, how are things on Mars?" Relena replied.

"Just peachy."

"Where is your husband?" Zechs asked as he looked around for Heero.

"Right here" Heero said as he came down the stairs dressed in a pin striped suit. As soon as he had descended Zechs shook his hand and wished him a merry Christmas.

"Nice look you have there Heero."Zechs said as he looked at the small beard Heero had.

"You have grown a moustache too, suits you just fine" Heero commented on Zechs' new look.

"Lu wanted me to grow a beard but once it started to set in I thought I looked too much like my father so I shaved my chin again but kept the moustache. But now business first..." Zechs told Heero as he was interrupted by his wife.

"No, not that again." she said with a bit of anger in her voice.

"Hey, it's all right...it's just a friendly fencing match." Relena said as she looked at both men with a smile.

"Yes that it is." Heero said with a smile "What was the score again?"

"7 to 2 in your favour" Zechs said remembering their first real fight against each other at the end of the war in AC195. At the time they were fencing in their Gundams but ever since then they preferred to fence with blunt swords and the necessary equipment to protect themselves from getting hurt. It had become a Christmas tradition amongst them to pick up a sword and try to beat each other again.

"What about 7h30 in the morning here in the garden." Heero accepted his challenge.

"Sounds fine to me." Zechs finished his conversation with Heero as he turned to Mrs Dorlian who greeted him. A few minutes later the doorbell rang again. At the door appeared the Changs with their recently born baby.

"Hey Wu Fei, merry Christmas." Heero greeted his Chinese friend as he walked up to him while Relena greeted Sally.

"Merry Christmas to you too Heero" Wu Fei said as he shook Heero's hand with a smile.

"Merry Christmas Sally, and how's the little one?" Relena asked Sally

"Mai Lin is just fine" Sally answered as they walked into the dining room joining the others. The women all gathered around Sally to take a look at the baby as the men were standing together looking at their wives.

"I don't get it, it seems where ever we go the women flock together to take a look at the baby." Wu Fei said as he looked at Heero and Zechs.

"I read somewhere that it's an ancient instinct that arises when a newborn comes along." Heero commented on it.

"It makes us human." Zechs added. Heero looked at Relena who was allowed to hold the baby and he thought how well she looked with a baby in her arms. The doorbell rang again and a few moments later Lady Une walked in accompanied by Trowa, Mariemaya and their little son Steward.

"If it isn't the Barton family," Heero greeted their newly arrived guests "Merry Christmas to you all"

"And a merry Christmas to you too." Trowa responded as he held his four year old boy close to him.

"Why are you keeping him on a leash, so to speak." Zechs wondered as he looked at Trowa.

"Well if you must know, this boy is too much like his father. He climbs on everything he can get on. If he keeps this up I'll have turned grey before I'm 32" Lady Une said as she looked at her son.

"And give me more than enough trauma's to even consider having children myself one day." Mariemaya added making everyone in the room laugh as all the children gathered and started to play. Trowa warned his son not to do any monkey business or he would be punished for the rest of the evening. The boy promised he would be on his best behaviour as he started to leave and join Jessica and Robert while Mariemaya stayed with the grown ups but keeping an eye on her younger nephew. She had decided to protect her inheritance to declare the young man who called himself after her uncle to be her uncle. Nowadays she usually called him dad.

"The two of you are still as in love as you first were." Lucrezia said as she looked at her friend Une who blushed for a moment.

"Yes but if you and Sally hadn't steered me in his direction it would probably never have happened." Une said as she looked at her husband. She remembered the day they had been set up on a date by her friends but at the end of that evening they had fallen in love with each other and since then they were inseparable. She smiled at the thought how surprised her friends looked when she announced her engagement to Trowa a few months later. They thought that the both of them had just that one date and that was it but Trowa and Lady Une had decided to keep their relationship secret for a while and surprised everyone. If she hadn't been surprised by nature herself they would have postponed the official announcement of their engagement for a few more weeks but since they were expecting a baby it couldn't be helped. Some time later the Maxwells arrived and they were greeted by everyone.

"Well guys I hope you haven't forgotten that I would bring the champaign for tonight." Duo said as he set down a box on the table and pulled out a few bottles. Once he had put them on the table one of the servants came over with a tray of glasses as Duo opened a bottle and expertly poured the champaign into the glasses while Heero poured some drinks for the children. While the drinks were being served the Winners walked into the room.

"Hey Quattre, merry Christmas. Want a drink?" Duo offered him a glass of champaign.

"No thank you, maybe later." Quattre refused while Heero walked over with a drink he couldn't refuse.

"You seem to have forgotten he doesn't drink." Heero said as he handed a glass of non alcoholic champaign.

"Actually I occasionally do have a drink but mostly late at night." Quattre admitted.

"Seems like some of the wife's habits are rubbing off on you." Duo said with a wink making Quattre laugh. Relena and Dorothy were talking with each other about the baby while Sally, Lucrezia and Une were discussing the joys and lesser joyful things of motherhood. Hilde was talking to Mariemaya about teenage stuff while all the men talked about their latest exploits. Then Mrs Dorlian announced that dinner was being served and everyone sat down while the servants started to serve dinner.

Later that evening as everyone was enjoying a last drink in the salon everyone noticed that Quattre was drinking a glass of Raki, a Turkish beverage.

"Well isn't that alcoholic?" Duo pointed out the obvious.

"I told you that I occasionally have a drink." Quattre said as he showed his glass "According to Rasheed when served right this is an enjoyable drink. So I tried it once and I liked it but I never drink more than two or three glasses."

"It 's never a good idea to drink too much." Zechs said as he swirled his cognac in his glass.

"Yeah, I remember a Christmas several years ago." Heero said as he looked at his Sake "Duo had been drinking too much whisky so we had to carry him to his bed."

"I remember the hangover the day after." Duo continued looking at his glass of whisky "I learned my lesson there and then."

"Good, because the next time I cut your braid off when you're that drunk again." Wu Fei said with a smile as he looked at his glass of bourbon.

"Well we all must have had a drink to many at some point in our lives, excluding Quattre here" Trowa remembered his first hangover as he picked up his Brandwein. The women suddenly noticed that Hilde hadn't been drinking all evening whereas she usually drinks more then them.

"Is there a reason why you don't drink tonight?" Sally asked as she looked at Hilde.

"erg, ... well Duo and I wanted to keep this to ourselves for a while but since you're asking. We are expecting a baby." Hilde dropped the bomb making everyone congratulate them.

"Well," Heero said to Duo with a smile on his face "you'll be a father soon. Your wild days will come to an end and you'll be changing nappies in no time."

"Yeah, I don't know about that last one." Duo said with a disgusted face when suddenly they heard a cup break in the adjoining room where Mrs Dorlian was preparing everything to have coffee. Heero and Relena immediately went over there to find her in front of the television looking at a fight at the ESUN research station which was build to study an anomaly which Zechs had found between Mars and the asteroid belt several years ago. The Preventer forces that were stationed there were fighting off what seemed to be Virgo mobile dolls. Suddenly the phones of Lady Une, Relena and Dorothy started to ring making them answer the phone. They were called in by the president for an emergency meeting about the fight that had started a few minutes ago while there was a live broadcast about the station. Heero immediately ran to his office followed by Zechs while the rest started to discuss these events amongst each other. On television the fight was still going on but the Preventer ships were nearly all destroyed as well as the research station. As soon as the destruction was complete the Virgo's flew away and disappeared into the anomaly. When Heero and Zechs came down Noin asked them what they had been doing.

"Well I asked the Preventers at the research and development colony to investigate the remains of the battlefield. Who knows what they'll find." Heero answered.

"I also sent word to the Mars colony to go on red alert and rearm the mobile suits in case we would be under attack next." Zechs explained his absence. Everyone there knew what this could mean. The first president of the Earth Sphere United Nations was right, there could some day be a mobile suit threat. Mobile dolls to be more exact for the time being.

**AC 205, Presidential Palace.**

Everyone of importance was present in the crisis meeting to talk about the events at the research station near the anomaly. The president started the meeting by apologising to everyone to interrupt their Christmas celebrations but the images on television were making it quite clear there was a problem that needed their immediate attention.

"I want some suggestions about how we are going to handle this crisis." the president stated as he looked at lady Une.

"Well I already called headquarters to mobilise the troops within the Earth sphere and Zechs already has relayed a message to Mars to mobilise his forces including rearming the mobile suits he has at his disposal. Heero has sent Preventer vessels out including a prototype Warship which was created for something like this. Unfortunately this ship isn't fully operational yet." Une answered truthfully.

"So if who ever is behind this would decide on a full scale attack we might have no real defence against it." the president realised as he looked around.

"Well there is a way but than you have to activate protocol 666 which the first president of the Earth Sphere United Nations and I set up just in case something like this should happen." Relena then decided as she was feeling bad about what she was about to do.

"I've heard about that protocol but what is it actually?" the president asked.

"Protocol 666 is a temporary activation of a secret special military unit that calls themselves The Peace Keepers. They have the means to counteract this kind of threat with the help of the Preventers or strike independently at the heart of the problem." Relena explained "But we need to get the approval of the entire government in order to activate this unit. Otherwise we can't act."

"Are you part of this unit?" the minster of finance asked her wondering why she would know about it.

"More precisely I lead their political wing." Relena answered.

"How is this unit put together?" the president asked as he looked at Relena.

"Well we divided the unit in several parts. The research and development colony near the asteroid belt is our visible front but somewhere within the asteroid belt we have a military base in which we stocked our real weapons. We have our own government inside this colony where we make decisions according the situation. The people living there live according the principles of the Sanck Kingdom. Still, if activation of protocol 666 is approved it wouldn't necessarily mean we will take action because first the triumvirate of leaders have to unanimously decide to activate which in this case won't be a problem. I already got conformation that if protocol 666 is approved we start preparing for take off."

"Who are the members of this Triumvirate?" another minister asked.

"Well the head of research Dr J, head of military operations and overall leader Heero Yui and me." Relena answered as she looked at everyone.

"So if we decide to activate protocol 666 do we also get a full disclosure about this unit?" the president wondered.

"No, but you'll get the general outlines of the project. We have been developing the 'Enterprise' in the last seven years and the ship itself is ready but the people needed to run this ship haven't been found yet since it has a very complicated weapon system which needs special training and that is the reason why Lady Une said that it wasn't fully operational yet. Once we can find the right people to handle the mobile armaments Dr J. has created for the ship this ship could be used more effectively against mobile suits or mobile dolls but in the event that we wouldn't be able to develop this ship in time or get enough people to handle these new systems we decided on a backup plan in the form of rebuilding some mobile suits. We decided to rebuild the Gundams. Now we posses eleven Gundams and no more. We decided on this number since we also see them as too powerful to mass produce. We had hoped we were just rebuilding them to rust up, or even better, to be recycled and used to build more ships like the 'Enterprise'. They will all be build with gundanium armour so it will be better protected. We are also redeveloping the already existing cruisers with a mobile arms system and gundanium armour. The research and development colony will over time become the most important part of our unit and the base will at some point be dismantled and all military personnel will be transferred to the colony." Relena told them of the plans they had for the future " Oh one thing, even after this crisis we will remain an independent unit in order to keep the peace from a distance. We only act when protocol 666 is in effect."

"Well you did disclose the existence of the Gundams within your unit even though you probably only build them as a temporary solution for problems in the immediate future. We have to think about it." The president said as he read the file that Relena had handed him.

"What is there to think about" another minister started "We have been attacked by mobile dolls and Ms Relena has the real means to actually counteract them while we only have the Preventers to counteract them. We already saw what they were capable of and there were only five of them against ten cruisers patrolling the sector. These cruisers are already heavily armed but still were no match for them. Even with the latest advancements in weapon technology provided by their research colony."

"Not to mention the fact that there are still a number of cruisers that still haven't been upgraded flying around within the Earth Sphere." the minister of finance said as more people started to join Relena's proposal.

"Mr president it is not as if Ms Relena withheld this information to start a war against us. She was actually entrusted with this by your predecessor because she is a pacifist at heart but she is also realist enough to know that not everyone would blindly follow her ideals. Why do you think she wanted me as minister of defence and not one of her own party members. I am still a member of the Kushrenada party. Even though we only represent a small number of people our stands remain the same. You can't keep the peace by minimising your forces to help maintain the peace. We still need weapons in case something goes severely wrong. I'm not saying we should mobilise the people to start fighting again but we are now at a crossroad where the best decision is to fight back. Preferably outside the Earth Sphere." Dorothy finally joined in since she knew the president was a hard line pacifist but so was Relena until she was put in charge of the Peace Keeper project. She knew how hard it had been for Relena over the last few years as she was working on the project and she felt as if she had betrayed her own ideals. Dorothy convinced her that she could still be the idealist she had always been but sometimes she had to put her ideals aside for the greater good. Now it was up to the president to do the same.

"Still... it is a hard decision to make." The president said as he looked at Lady Une first who was also a bit agitated about his hesitation.

"Why don't you let us take the gloves off and give Heero a chance to take care of this crisis." she expressed her feelings knowing what it meant for her as well "it's not as if he will be jumping around for joy. He hates fighting as much as the next good soldier. The wish of every good soldier is that he is training to never have to fight. I myself was trained with these ideals in mind. If Treize were here he would say that you still don't understand the responsibility you are given by the people. You are our commander and chief but if you want to sit back and do nothing we might as well pack up and go home now and wait for the enemy to attack us and don't even put up a fight at all. I'm game if you are."

The president now started to realise what was really at stake here, the protection of the people living within the Earth Sphere. He then turned to Relena.

"Are you fine with this?" He asked her.

"It's not like I really want to do this but we don't have much of a choice. Once this crisis is over we do want to keep our weapons safe and the sector where our military base is will become a forbidden sector for anyone who wants to enter it. If they don't turn around when we tell them to they will be shot down. We do need to keep the Gundams away from everybody." Relena stated with a serious face. The president knew that look on her face and nodded and then he asked who was in favour of activating protocol 666. Everyone raised their hands and Relena sighed as she looked sad. She now had to leave the Earth to perform her duties as a member of the Peace Keepers.

"Well Relena the Peace Keepers may go ahead" the president said as he looked at her sad face. "But one thing why call this protocol 666"

"According to an ancient believe some day a beast will rise and he will be known by a number. That number was 666. Heero thought it would be fitting since we are the ones keeping the beast on a leash." Relena answered.

"Was Heero in it from the beginning?"

"Both Heero and I were asked to start all this by president Jameson. He took the details of protocol 666 with him to the grave. When we start our actions we will keep you updated on our progress for as long as we are able to since Heero believes we have to enter the anomaly in order to fight the enemy on their own soil." Relena laid out an idea Heero already passed on to her.

"So they might come from elsewhere in the galaxy" the president stated

"maybe" Relena said as she stood up and packed her stuff and joined Dorothy and Lady Une leaving the crisis room.

**AC 205, Yui residence.**

Heero, Quattre and Trowa were waiting for their wives to come home. They had decided to go to the salon after everyone else had gone to bed. They all had been discussing what they had to do. Duo wasn't too happy since he had hoped to never have to pick up the role of the god of death again. Zechs told him he should call himself the god of destruction this time around since they would go out there to destroy mobile dolls. Wu Fei thought that maybe there could be regular mobile suits as well but if it were done right the pilots could survive in their cockpits though all their weapons would be disabled. Everyone could live with that idea.

"Would any of you like a drink" Heero asked as he walked over to the bar pouring himself a glass of whisky.

"I could use another glass of Raki now" Quattre accepted Heero's offer who started to prepare the drink.

"A glass of Brandwein sounds just fine " Trowa sighed as his thoughts were elsewhere.

Heero returned with the drinks when he heard the door open. Their wives came in and Relena walked immediately walked to the bar pouring herself a glass of whisky asking Dorothy and Une if they wanted anything too. They both asked for a glass of cognac which she prepared as well. The men looked surprised at their wives since they had rarely seen them drink these before.

"Feeling that bad?" Heero asked his wife who nodded.

"At first that idiot wanted to try and stop us from intervening." Relena huffed as she handed Dorothy and Une their drinks "It's not as if we are going out there just to fight. First we need to asses the situation and try to start negotiations but if that fails we have no other choice."

"If Dorothy and I hadn't spoken our minds we would still be there discussing alternate methods of intervening." Une said as she sipped from her glass. Heero then looked at his wife who just picked up her glass and downed it all at once. Now he definitely knew she was on edge. He walked up to her and put his arms around her as she laid her head against his chest trying to hold back her tears but Heero said it was okay to cry. Everyone in the room felt the same as Relena. Tears were also forming in Une's eyes whereas Dorothy laid her head on Quatre's shoulders trying to keep herself from crying but when Quattre held her closer she couldn't hold her tears back any more. The men comforted their wives the best they could.

**CE 80, Peace Keeper Headquarters.**

Kira had gathered all his closest officers for a special occasion in the mobile suit bay at headquarters. He looked somewhat glad everyone had made it.

"I've gathered you here in order to hand you your new machines since we have taken our time to develop them right." Kira got straight to business. "I know you weren't really asking but I think that with the possible threat that is upon us we may have a need for them. So I had ordered to build or rebuild one for each of you."

Then he opened a door where a mobile suit appeared

"This is the OPX 04 Buster build after the original buster design. Deearka you will pilot this machine" he said while opening another door. "This is the ZPX 01 Duel, redesigned upon the original duel design but created with your fighting style in mind" Kira said to Isaac as he walked over to door number three wile he opened it.

"This is the ZPX 03 Destiny. Shin I know you like to get your hands on this baby but be careful it's a bit more powerful then the original one." he continued as he walked over to the next door.

"Here is the OPX 03 Hakatsuke. Nothing new on the outside but there have been changes in defence and offensive capabilities. Well Mu feeling up to piloting it?" Kira asked his former commanding officer as he walked on.

"This baby is the EPX01 Ghost rider. I think you'll remember we took it from you Candy but we just redesigned its weapon and defence systems as well as the engines but we kept the basic design in mind since it was specially designed for you. Then we have the EPX02 Cerberus. It was originally loosely designed on the bucoo's but we have improved it and now it's closer to the Gaia design which brings us to this one. The ZPX 02 Gaia, what do you say Andrew, want to take it out for a run?" Kira looked at the older man who was smiling at the thought of going out with that machine.

"Next machine is the EPX 03 Thunder. Its artillery weapon has been improved and it also has better shielding. Well Joe this is your machine now. Next in line is the OPX 05 Strike. Basically the same as the original but we improved its shielding and drive system to fit your fighting style Cagali. It also has changing attack packs like the original Strike had. Now this is a new one the OPX 06 Songstress which we build for you Lacus if you'd feel the need to sortie with us. This one has been equipped with a heavy beam riffle and even better shields than all other mobile suits but we designed it with you in mind. This is the ZPX 04 Impulse designed after the original but the weapon packs are improved and we also improved its energy systems since we couldn't fit this one out with a nuclear drive system. But to overcome the power problem we created interchangeable energy packs so you can change them during a battle. Make sure that you keep an eye on your energy meter Luna." Kira concluded his tour.

"What about the deuterium beam system we originally had on the Minerva?" Lunamaria asked.

"It works well if you're close enough to your ship but when you're too far out and in need of a recharge these energy packs can be sent to you and save your butt." Athrun answered her question.

"These machines look cool" Helen said as she looked at her Cerberus. Candy looked at her machine with a sad face.

"What is it?" Shin asked the teenage girl.

"I really don't want to fight actually but without me this machine is useless. But I also wouldn't know what to do without it." Candy said as she looked at Shin.

"It's all right. Nobody really expects you to fight but I know when push comes to shove you will enter that cockpit even if you don't really want to." Shin said to her.

"That's just the problem. When I know there is a danger for all of us I will do whatever I can to protect us all just because I can." Candy replied.

"You almost sound like Kira." Murue said as she put an arm around her adopted daughter. "He wasn't that willing to fight either but he did what ever he could to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. He still is that way today."

"Thanks for telling me this, mum" the girl said as Murue looked at the other teenagers in the bay. When they first were brought aboard the Archangel she felt sorry for them but over time they surprised her by coping with being the way they were and started to look at her as a mother figure resulting in one day surprising her on mother's day with breakfast in her quarters. She smiled at the memory. It was then she decided to adopt them. Mu supported her decision and they both adopted the children but they grew up so fast making her feel old. What surprised her the most was the time she had just given birth to her own son they all pitched in to help her out with their little brother. Now the three year old she had back home in Orb was growing up with two teenage sisters and a teenage brother.

"Man this thing is even better then the suit I'm using these days" Isaac commented on his new mobile suit.

"I thought you'd like it" Athrun said as he looked at his brother-in-arms.

"This Buster is also well designed" Deearka approved his machine.

"Why are there three different kinds designations for the Gundams?" Shin asked.

"It's like this OPX means Orb Peace Keeper X machine. Z stands for Zaft, E for Earth since the president of the federation didn't like FPX as a designation. The Federation still has a bad reputation amongst all other nations on Earth." Athrun answered.

"Ah, that's why..." Shin got the idea.

Everyone in the bay were checking out their new machines when they noticed an unopened door. They all wondered what was behind that door.

"Well we have put this machine aside for another ace pilot who is about to loose his job because of his heritage. You see Rei Za Berel and Rau Lacrusé were clones of my father but they didn't want to be him. They actually rebelled against it. Now there is this kid who found out who he really is and immediately he changed his name to Jason LaFlaga. That's how we found out about his existence actually. He also refused to take over my father's businesses and told all those CEO's to get lost. He made it clear to them that he had no interest in being the person they want him to be. He was already enlisted with the Zaft forces when he decided to change his name and once he had done that they became a bit uneasy with him. They remembered Rei and Rau which has made them decide to terminate his training so Dacosta has decided to approach him with the proposal to join us instead." Mu said as he wondered about this new clone of his father.

**CE 80, Plants.**

At a training Zaft facility a boy walked out with his bags wondering what he was going to do now. Even though he was a great pilot they wanted him out because of his heritage. It seemed as if they weren't too sure about what he might become over the years. When he was about to enter a cab he was approached by a red haired man.

"Hello my name is Dacosta and I'm here to present you an offer." he said as he looked at the boy.

"I'm sorry but I'm not in the mood to make any deals today." Jason said as he turned back to the cab.

"I know exactly who you are and I want to offer you a chance to complete your training as a mobile suit pilot. So what do you say to that" Dacosta immediately said making the boy turn back to him.

"What do you mean?" Jason asked

"I'm a member of the Peace Keeper corps and we could use someone like you. So this is what we're offering you. Membership and a way to complete your training. We even have a machine ready for you." Dacosta finished his proposal.

"I started training here so one day I hoped to be selected to be a Peace Keeper but I wasn't sure if I would fit the profile. Especially after I found out who I really am." Jason said as he sent the cab off again. Dacosta smiled at him and then offered him a ride to New Heliopolis where he could meet the Chief Peace Keeper. Jason accepted and followed Dacosta to his car. Once in the car Dacosta picked up the conversation again.

"We actually picked you so we could keep an eye on you. Since two of your predecessors were not the way they should be and you don't seem any different. Yet your psych-profile tells us you are an outstanding candidate for our cause. As for your piloting skills well there is still some room for improvement but once you start training with lieutenant Asuka you'll be one of our best pilots." Dacosta picked up the conversation.

"My teachers said that I had exactly the same fighting style of Rei and that I was better at assessing a situation then any other student they ever had. It's my speciality actually, study your opponent and find his weakness in order to strike him down as quickly as possible. Although I know there could be pilots out there whose weaknesses are difficult to exploit. Commander Yamato comes to mind as such an opponent. The only weakness he has is probably loosing sight of what really is the problem. Once he has that problem he can be beaten. If he looses sight over what he is really fighting for, he's toast." Jason said as he looked at the man next to him.

"I've seen it happen once and to be honest it's not a pretty sight to see someone doubt himself but Kira got over it and these days his goals are clearer then ever. Maintain the peace no matter what we have to do in order to keep it." Dacosta remembered the last time Kira had been beaten. They drove on for a while until they reached the space dock and then entered a shuttle and left for the New Heliopolis colony.

**AC 205, Yui Residence.**

Heero had woken up early and gone to his office where he started to go over the video feed of the destruction of the research station and the Preventer ships stationed there. About half an hour later Zechs walked in looking for Heero.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Zechs asked him.

"Not really, if you're looking for a fencing match...I'm not in the mood." Heero said.

"No, I'm not in the mood either. I'd rather find out who's behind this attack on our research station and the troops that were stationed there." Zechs told him as he sat down next to Heero looking for clues on who had been responsible for this attack. Heero suddenly magnified an image he noticed on one of the Virgo's.

"Have you ever seen this symbol before?" Heero asked Zechs who shook his head.

"But it seems to be human in origin since the writing underneath it is similar to ours. It says 'For the preservation of our pure and blue world'?" Zechs read aloud "what does that mean?"

"You got me." Heero wondered himself "but this could actually confirm one of the theories about the anomaly, it could be a door to an alternate reality. Who knows what we're going to find there."

"Maybe we might end up mixed in a war that isn't really ours." Zechs reasoned as he looked at Heero.

"Most likely, but they attacked us without warning so this means we're already mixed up in it." Heero continued "Which means we have to find out which side the Virgo's belong to and then we punish them for attacking us."

"Would Relena be fine with this?" Zechs asked knowing the answer already.

"We both know she'd rather negotiate with all sides and create peace but are all sides involved willing to negotiate? If not we might be fighting after all." Heero sighed. Zechs wasn't looking forward to fight another war either but with the knowledge they had gathered so far it seemed as there wasn't much of an alternative.

**CE 80, Peace Keepers Headquarters.**

Jason had just arrived at the Peace Keepers Headquarters where he was welcomed by Kira who immediately took him to his office where Mu was waiting as well.

"Hello kid, my name..." Captain LaFlaga started as he got interrupted by Jason.

"You're Mu LaFlaga a Captain within the Peace Keeper organisation. I know who you are. Ever since I found out who I was I looked for relatives. Let's say I found out I have a big brother." Jason finished his introduction.

"Is that how you see me?" Mu asked the boy.

"It beats calling you my son." Jason said as they both began to laugh.

"You know, I like the idea of having a kid brother." Mu said as he shook the boy's hand.

"Now let's get down to business." Kira reminded them why they were there. They then started to discuss what the job description of a Peace Keeper is as well as what the rules within the corps were. Jason agreed to them and then he signed his papers in order to become one of them. Mu then lead him to the mobile suit bay where he was given a uniform and he got to see his mobile suit.

"I think you're familiar with this suit, it's the ZPX 05 Legend. We rebuilt and improved it with a pilot like you in mind. Why don't you go out in it to test it. Lieutenant Asuka is waiting for you outside to test your skills. Don't disappoint him." Mu said to Jason who immediately climbed in and took off.

Somewhere else in the station Deearka was taking a walk as he walked into Myrialia. The both of them then greeted each other and talked for a while.

"Hey Myr, I heard you got promoted." Deearka told her as he smiled at her.

"Not really, I got assigned to the new Minerva class ship Zaft has built for the Peace Keepers. I'm going to be the acting Captain for a while since the man they had in mind for the job refused the Captain's seat. Which surprised me since he used to be the XO on the Minerva." Myrialia said as she looked at the young man.

"From what I heard he was a ship's Captain before he took on this assignment but he couldn't handle it so when he asked for a transfer to the Diane he also asked for that position. So now you know why you are going to be the Captain." Deearka told her.

"I don't know if I'm ready for this." Myrialia doubted herself.

"Admiral Ramius wasn't ready to command the Archangel and yet she did a great job in the past ten years. I hope to serve under her again soon." Deearka responded.

"I don't think so. I heard you're going to be the commanding officer of the mobile suit pilots on the Diane which means you'll end up serving as my right hand." Myrialia said with a smile on her face.

"Yes Ma'am..." Deearka joked as he saluted to her making her laugh.

Isaac had just finished another test run with his new machine but still wasn't impressed by it's performance. He then sat down with chief Murdoch to see what other improvements they could make to change it's performance.

"All the limiters except the nuclear limiters have been taken off line and still it doesn't perform as it could be." Isaac said as he looked over the specs of the suit.

"And we're not allowed to mess around with the limiters of the nuclear engine. So what else can we do to improve performance?" Mr Murdoch wondered himself as Kira walked over.

"What's the problem?" He asked as he looked at Isaac.

"For some reason we don't know why this suit doesn't perform as well as it should." Isaac told Kira who then asked Isaac to move over and let him take a look at all the specs.

"I see the problem, the nuclear limiters that are programmed here are the specs for naturals." Kira said as he changed it. "I think it will perform better now. We limited the output of the nuclear engines for the machines piloted by naturals in order to give them a better way of handling their machines. I think somebody installed the same programme without changing the specs on the nuclear engine. Why don't you take it out to see how it performs now"

"Thanks for taking a look at it yourself" Isaac thanked Kira.

**CE 80, Zaft Battleship Diane.**

Arthur was overlooking the last reports about ship movements in space when he was interrupted by his helmsman.

"Sir, New Heliopolis in sight. What are your orders?" the young ensign asked.

"Change course to Peace Keeper headquarters. We will dock there and bring in our Captain and a few ace mobile suit pilots." The commander said.

"Sir, are you fine with the idea of handing this ship over to the Peace Keepers?" His Com-officer asked "We are Zaft officers after all. Serving under a Peace Keeper officer is not exactly what I had in mind when I signed up for Zaft."

"Well this ship is already under the command of an officer within the Peace Keepers." Commander Arthur told them making the crew members present look at him "And if any of you don't like it you may leave the ship as soon as we have docked. But before you go think about this, you were all selected by the Peace Keeper corps to serve with them. If the highest officers of the Peace Keepers think you have the stuff to be a Peace Keeper you shouldn't refuse their offer to join their cause. Moreover this way we can do more for the Homeland then as Zaft officers. We may some day fight our own forces but if it protects our civilians then I wouldn't mind fighting them. So make your decision to leave or stay carefully."

"I'm not staying." the Com-officer said as he stood up and left the bridge. All other crew members on the bridge were a bit surprised but they returned to their duties thinking about what the Commander had said. Once Headquarters was in sight they started the docking procedure and when they had docked they all sighed in relief that the trip to there had been without incidents. The Commander then ordered the entire crew to the mobile suit bay to welcome their Captain and mobile suit pilots. Half an hour later all had assembled in the bay while Myrialia walked in to start her job as Captain of this ship.

"Welcome aboard Ma'am" Commander Arthur welcome her.

"I'd rather have you calling me Captain, Commander." Myrialia said to him with a smile "Ma'am makes me feel old."

"I can imagine, you know you'd be the youngest captain in history of humanity." the Commander said as he looked at her.

"Yes, most people become a ship's captain when they're over thirty. Although Admiral Ramius was only twenty eight when she was promoted to captain." Myr told him.

"Some people just have it to be captain at a younger age, but I will be at your side with advise if you need it." the Commander assured her. Then she walked up to the crew and looked at them. The crew was wondering what to expect from her.

"Today you will start your new life as a member of the Peace Keepers and from today on you will be wearing the uniform of the Peace Keeper unit. All of you who don't want to sign up with us are asked to leave and go back to your Homeland. We will provide transportation for those who are leaving but remember this before you decide to leave. You were all picked by the corps for this assignment. I will do my best to lead you and run this ship as it should be run. Admiral Ramius assigned me to this ship in order to integrate officers from different places to work together as one unit. Commander Elmsman will lead the mobile suit forces on this ship but we have to remove two Zacoos in order to fit in two other mobile suits. Besides Commander Elmsman's Buster and the new Impulse we also have the Destiny and the Legend assigned to this ship so the pilots of the two Zacoos will be assigned elsewhere, well more precisely they will be assigned to the Kusanagi under the command of Colonel Kisaga. The pilots may decide amongst themselves who will go to this ship and become the first Zaft pilots in the service of the Peace Keepers on an Orb vessel." Myrialia finished her speech as she looked at all the people in front of her. One young girl stepped forward and started to talk.

"Captain, I'm Serena Molnar and I would gladly give up my place on this ship to serve under Colonel Kisaga in order to learn from his pilots and become a better pilot then I already am." the girl said as she saluted to Myr. All the other pilots were quite surprised by this girl and started talking amongst themselves while Myrialia walked up to her.

"Why do you want to volunteer for this assignment?" She asked her.

"When I was a child I used to live in Orb and during the great war we had to run from our Homeland and ended up in the Plants. But in my heart I'm still a believer of the laws and principles of the Orb Union." The young pilot answered.

**AC 205, Asteroid Base.**

It had been a few days since they had left Earth with Quatre's new ship which he had build to travel to this base quicker than by the use of the regular ships. The designs of this ship were shared with ships engineers all over the Earth sphere in order to build faster ships to supply the Mars colony quicker and also build quicker defence ships for the Preventers. Relena had handed over her responsibilities to the vice foreign minister and so had Dorothy hers to her vice defence minister. Zechs and Lucrezia had decided to leave their children in the care of Mrs Dorlian while Trowa and Lady Une had sent their son to his aunt Catherine. Sally and Wu Fei had left their baby with Mrs Dorlian as well but with great pain in their hearts. Quattre had asked his sisters to take over from him during his absence while Duo had left Hilde behind in the safety of their home. He didn't want her to risk the safety of their unborn child but he had promised her that he would be back when the baby was supposed to be born. As they all gathered in the briefing room Heero looked at his wife with some concern. She had barely spoken with any of them since they had left Earth. He figured that she was still somewhat in shock for having to take the decision of activating their unit. They all knew that she would need some time to get over it. Once everyone was seated Heero started to talk.

"According the latest info we obtained we have no idea what to expect on the other side of the anomaly but Dr J. has already confirmed by sending a small probe through it that we definitely might end up in an alternate reality to our own. We are going out there with three ships. One is going to be the Peace Enforcer which will be our base of operations. The other two will be the Peacemillion and the Mogol. They will be used as supply ships. Once we get there the first thing we're going to do is to asses the situation and try to find out how many factions there are and who is actually using the mobile dolls. Then our priority should be to negotiate a cease fire between the factions and ask for the dismantling of the mobile dolls within their system. Relena I'm counting on you to mediate between the factions and I hope we can succeed without having to fire a shot. If for some reason we can't bring peace through negotiation we have no other alternative then to fight but I am hoping that it won't come to that."

"I'll do my best to negotiate with them Heero but we should be aware of the fact that whoever is in control of the mobile dolls may not be willing to negotiate. If it turns into a battle we have no other choice then to fight. Lets just hope we succeed through diplomacy." Relena said as she looked at her husband for strength. He was glad she did approve of his plan to go out there and try to negotiate first.

"Well then..." Heero continued as he brought up a screen "Now it's time to show you the Gundams. I want you to test them yourself before we go out on this mission. Duo, the Death Scythe has been rebuild with the latest stealth technology so we're going to use you as a scout from time to time to find out what we're up against. You can also counteract other ships, mobile suits or even the mobile dolls that use stealth technology. In other words you will be our ace in the hole when they attack us without us seeing them until it's too late. Trowa, the Heavy Arms has been outfitted with the latest Gatling guns. Instead of bullets they fire plasma bursts but keep an eye on them because they tend to overheat when you keep firing continuously them over a prolonged battle. You may have to change your style of fighting in order to prevent that. Quattre, the Sandrock has been upgraded with beam swords instead of the classic swords you used. It also has a beam gun just in case your swords get destroyed in battle and a back up beam sabre. Dr J. is working on a shield as well to give you some extra protection once your swords are gone. Wu Fei, the Shenlong has no real serious upgrades compared to the last one you piloted but we did add a new shielding device since you have the tendency to go into the heart of a battle. Zechs, we rebuild the Epyon for you and we have improved its weapons system to the latest specs. We even introduced a EM pulse device to the whip so you can disable any doll or suit without having to destroy it. Lady Une, you get the Vayate. You should be familiar with its specs and know what this thing is capable of but you'll need to use it alongside its companion the Mercurius which will be piloted by Mariemaya. This suit's defence system has been improved a lot and you have more shield modules at your disposal than the original had. It also has been outfitted with beam sabres instead of guns. Leave the firing up to Une, you take out the ones getting too close to the both of you. Of all the pilots you have the hardest job: protecting the Vayate while fighting another suit or doll. Noin, your Gundam was designed after your favoured mobile suit. This is the Raging Taurus, it's a gundanium version of your Taurus but somewhat larger then you're used to. The weapons systems are almost identical to the classic Taurus suit but it also has an improved system to go in flight mode quicker than you're used to. I feel confident you can handle it. Everyone knows this old acquaintance is the Wing Zero, I will be piloting it. On first sight it looks the same as the original but I decided to take a beam sword along besides the Buster Riffle. This machine also has a back up beam sabre just in case. These two are also familiar to you guys the Tallgeese and the Wing Peace Keeper. They have been designed somewhat the same as the original. We only changed some of the weapons. The Tallgeese is outfitted with its original beam canon and we added a Gatling gun underneath the cockpit. The same type of gun as the ones on the Heavy arms. As for the Wing Peace Keeper we gave it the same weapons as the Wing Zero. The real improvements on all of these machines are the nuclear powered engines and anti nuke jammers since we came up with a system to disable nuclear devices which has been outfitted on our ship just to take out nukes before they hit us. These machines don't run out of power any more and are more powerful to use. We also found something interesting in the Zero programme which we turned into a useful side programme for the cockpit system. Since I figured when we started to build these machines again we would get older up to a point we wouldn't be as fast as we used to be we needed something to aid our reaction times. So this programme actually works as a neural link between you and the machine just like the Zero programme does except for the negative side effects of the Zero system. You will be in control of the system at all times. Since this is all new I want you to board your machines and take them out on a test run to see if you like them the way they are now."

"This neural interface won't take over from us the way the Zero system does, are you SURE?" Duo asked remembering his brush with the Zero system.

"Absolutely, I have had a lot of time to study the Zero system and found there are some useful elements in it we can use for all kinds of purposes. There was a side programme we have turned into a programme that can be used for medical purposes. And it has been used frequently. I already tested the system installed in your machines myself in various simulations even in the worst conditions you're still able to control it while the full Zero system would have taken over already. Someone else has any questions?" Heero put Duo at ease.

"Has the Zero system been installed in my machine?" Zechs asked.

"Actually there is a Zero backup system in all the machines but they are all blocked out of the main system. I made sure of that. You all need a password for that. Just to make sure I had the scientists who were installing the system choose a password which you have to figure out yourselves. It was chosen based on your personality but I hope you won't need it. My machine's Zero system is active all the time."

"So if necessary we can activate it ourselves." Wu Fei stated.

"Are you sure it won't activate by accident?" Quattre asked.

"The only way it can be activated is by typing in the password and manually connect the Zero programme to the main system. Even if it would activate by accident the system won't be able to take over the machine which still keeps you in control at all times. The neural link will even protect you from the Zero system as long as at has no physical connection to the main system." Heero explained to Quattre who was satisfied with the answer.

"Heero, the Wing Peace Keeper and the Tallgeese. Who is going to pilot them?" Relena asked.

"I haven't found the right pilots for them yet, why?" Heero asked but he could guess what Relena was about to say.

"Because I want to pilot the Wing Peace Keeper myself." Relena said with a firm voice.

"You're pretty good in a simulation but still it is different from the real thing." Zechs started to talk as he looked at Relena "Heero and I have been exchanging our thoughts on your idea to start mobile suit training simulations in the past and at first we let you do this in the hopes that you wouldn't succeed in overcoming every simulation we would throw at you but it seemed at some point that you're as good as I am in the simulations which made you more and more confident over time. So we had to come up with simulations which we were barely able to handle. And yet you were able to handle it as well. I had hoped you weren't as able as I am but it seems like piloting a mobile suit is something we are both good at."

"Like Brother like sister" Noin stated making everyone giggle for a second.

"You can pilot the Wing Peace Keeper if you want to but only if you think you need to be out there. If you feel you don't have to, leave it all to us. And if you're going out the first few times I want you to stay close to the ship with some backup." Heero agreed to Relena's request.

"I will keep an eye on her." Noin volunteered as she looked at her husband who agreed with a nod.

"And I also want you to listen to Noin when she tells you to do something." Zechs told his sister who nodded in agreement.

"Any other questions?" Heero asked as he looked at all of them who in turn shook their heads. "Well then, get into your flight suits and test your machines. I'll be joining you shortly as soon as I have put Dorothy and Sally to work. "

They all left for the mobile suit bay while Heero took Sally and Dorothy with him. As they were heading to the medical bay Sally wondered what Heero had in mind for her.

"Heero why are we here?" Sally couldn't help herself.

"We're a bit short staffed on medical personnel, more specific...we need a chief medical and you have the right qualifications for this job. There are only a field medic and a nurse aboard this ship. In the past year you've served at Preventer headquarters as a doctor and you even took up courses in surgery and emergency medical procedures what makes you ready for this job." Heero answered her question.

"So I won't be spending much time on the bridge." Sally said a bit disappointed.

"You can still help out on the bridge when there are no wounded or any other medical problems to take care of. For now you have to make sure if we have the necessary supplies we need for this trip since everyone aboard is fit for duty. If you have nothing to do any more you're welcome on the bridge because we may have need for your expertise as a Preventer on whatever situation we encounter as well. Let us hope I assign you here to spend more time on the bridge then you do here." Heero assured her. When they walked into her office she looked at her staff and wondered if they were ready since they were quite young. She decided that maybe she should test them first since she would probably be ordering them to carry out some of the work she's supposed to do in a triage situation. She smiled at them and then spoke up.

"Hello I'm Sally Po, you're new chief medic. Since we're going to work together I want to know what your qualifications are and how well you can deal with a stress situation. In the next few hours I will test you and observe your work on dummies. Make me proud to be working with you." she immediately took control over her staff as they jumped in line. Heero decided to leave her to it and went out to pick up Dorothy who had been standing outside looking at what was happening inside the medical bay.

"She got right to it, I never expected that from her." Dorothy said as they were going to the bridge.

"Maybe it's for the best since her staff is still a bit green. The worst they had to handle until now was a few minor injuries and a upset stomach. So she better gets them ready in case we might have severely injured crewmen being brought in." Heero explained to Dorothy. "It all depends on how well you do your job on the bridge."

"What do you mean?" Dorothy asked while they entered the bridge.

"Commander Jones, this here is your Captain: Dorothy Catalonia-Winner." Heero introduced Dorothy to the young man in front of them.

"General, Captain, it will be an honour serving under you." the Commander said as he saluted while all other crewmen on the bridge immediately jumped up and saluted as well.

"As you were." Dorothy greeted the people on the bridge who immediately continued what they were doing while the Commander walked up to her.

"If I had known we were given a war veteran as our Captain I would have made sure the bridge was in a better shape then it is now." he apologised for the state the bridge was in at the time.

"Don't worry, I know you're finishing some last minute details on the bridge but one thing, I may have some command experience but I'm not that experienced. I will be looking at you for some advice when needed and you have to familiarise me with the ship and the ship's crew. I want to know everything there is to know before we go out there. I want to know what this ship is capable of and what we can handle in a battle. We need to work together as a team here." Dorothy grabbed the bull by the horns.

"Well, ma'am, I don't have much experience myself since I'm fresh out of the academy but maybe my expertise on strategy may be helpful for you." the Commander told her.

"Have you aced the strategy part of your exams?"

"I even introduced a variant to an existing strategy during classes. My professor was a bit baffled when I introduced it and how well it worked in the simulation we programmed with this strategy. Less casualties and still victorious." He proudly answered her question.

"Lets hope that you can come up with some new strategies while we are out there. Let me handle those who may not agree with you unless even I think the risk is too great to use the strategy you propose." Dorothy put him back in his place "Shall we get to it now.".

Heero left the bridge smiling while Dorothy got instructions on how to handle the ship and ship's operations. As he walked to the launch bay he wondered if everyone would be able to handle their assignments since half his crew had never been on a battlefield before. Maybe he should have brought in more experienced soldiers but he had no clue who he could ask since most of them had been out of the military too long. The new people he had on board were a bit too anxious for his taste to actually go out and start fighting. He hoped that it wouldn't come to that but he knew the chances on that happening would be very low. He entered the mobile suit bay as he watched the Wing Peace Keeper take off. Once inside the changing room he took of his clothes and put on his flight suit. After that he walked out and headed for his Wing Zero.

**CE 80, Zaft fortress Boaz II **

The fortress commander was looking at the latest reports on all troop and ship movements in the Earth sphere with a nod of approval as he found out that every ship known in the sector was moving just where they were expected to be.

"Sir, we got conformation of the launch of the newest battleship in the Archangel class. It is leaving the Lunar surface now and seems to be heading toward New Heliopolis. Should we track it, sir?" an ensign asked looking at his screen. The Commander looked up at the central view screen noticing the big blip on it.

"Yes keep tracking it since it will cross the border of our space in quadrant 13. Admiral McKenzie asked the council permission to cross that sector in order to get to New Heliopolis faster. They were allowed but only if a Zaft ship would escort it. The Voltaire is now in position near the place they are to be expected to cross the border." He answered the young man's question.

"Isn't the Voltaire a ship in the service of the Peace Keepers?" his aid asked.

"Yes it is and that's why Commander Jewel volunteered for the job. The Hood is expected to be turned over to the Peace Keepers as well. So it doesn't matter whether we track it or not. In the end it is in our best interest to keep an eye on it until it has entered New Heliopolis space. You never know what nut-job might want to attack it." The Commander said as he kept looking at the central screen.

**CE80, Aboard the Hood.**

The Captain was looking at the file of his soon to be XO with a smile on his face. He had never expected that a former Zaft CIC officer would be assigned to his ship. Then his eyes widened as he read to which ships she had been assigned to in the past.

"Hey Lieutenant Halliburton have you read this file?" the Captain asked.

"No Sir, but I wonder why a coordinator has been assigned to this ship." the young man said.

"I know you still have strong feelings towards coordinators since they were the ones who have killed your father but Admiral Ramius wouldn't have chosen you to serve on this ship if she didn't see it in you to be one of us, a Peace Keeper." The Captain said to the young man.

"I won't let my feelings towards coordinators get in my way of getting the job done, sir" The lieutenant replied as he turned to his screen.

"This young lady served on the Minerva, the Eternal and the past two years on the Archangel. She has seen her share of war which makes her qualified for the job as XO. We should all support her as best we can. She even brings aboard three special pilots which will be flying under your command but according to this they are put under her personal care since they have special needs." the Captain said.

"We're getting the extendeds?" the young man asked surprised.

"More precisely they are the children Admiral Ramius adopted a few years ago. So keep an eye on them on the battlefield. They are your responsibility once you're all out there. So make sure they get out there unharmed or it will be your head the Admiral will be after." The Captain warned him.

"I'll do my best sir but I don't know if I'm as good as them to do the job." The lieutenant replied.

"The Silver Striker was build after the Strike design only upgraded with a mobile armament system like the mobile armours you flew before you became a mobile suit pilot." The captain said to his CAG. "You see the Peace Keepers designed your machine so you could do the job your father couldn't do. If it hadn't been for Bloody Valentine your father would still be with us and the great war would have never happened. Remember that when you're asked to fight the enemy we're supposed to fight. And right now that enemy is an underground organisation known as Omega Force. They were responsible for Blue Cosmos and Logos and the atrocities committed in the past ten years."

"When we find those bastards I will give them Hell." the pilot growled as he remembered the day he was told his father had died trying to protect the Archangel from the Zaft forces.

"We're near quadrant 13, sir" the helmsman said as they approached the borders of Zaft controlled space.

"Contact Commander Jewel on the Voltaire. It's a Nasca class ship." The Captain ordered.

"There is an incoming message from the Voltaire, sir" the Com-officer relayed as he opened a channel.

"Hello Captain Rhodes, I'm Commander Jewel of the Peace Keeper corps." Isaac's face appeared on the communication screen "Lieutenant Commander Hawk and ensigns LaFlaga are already with us to transfer to your vessel so you can start patrolling sector 15 within Federation Space."

"We're not going to New Heliopolis?" the Captain asked.

"No, I'm sorry but we got word that some unknown machines were spotted just outside sector 21 several days ago and Admiral Yamato has the feeling that they could be part of the Omega Forces. Didn't you guys get the intelligence file two days ago?" Isaac yelled as he got agitated on the matter.

"We received no such file, sir" the Captain said as he looked at Isaac in surprise.

"That means we have a mole within our troops as well." Isaac realised the possibility.

"Or someone on the Lunar base with ties to them had been able to intercept that file." the Captain reasoned.

"Anyway the suits and your XO are on the way. Commander Jewel out." the screen went black as they saw three mobile suits and a shuttle leave a nearby Nasca class ship. They headed straight for them making the Captain give the orders to get the landing bays ready to receive them. He left the bridge with Lieutenant Halliburton to welcome them aboard ship. As soon as they had arrived the mobile suit bay on the ship they saw the shuttle had already landed. A young woman walked out and walked straight up to the Captain.

"Lieutenant Commander Meirin Hawk reporting for duty,sir" She saluted as the Thunder, the Ghost Rider and the Cerberus walked in "and these are the X-weapons assigned to your ship."

"Welcome aboard Lieutenant Commander Hawk, it's a pleasure to have you aboard." the Captain greeted her and then looked over to Lieutenant Halliburton "Why don't you meet your new pilots?"

"I will as soon as they get out of their machines." the lieutenant said as he looked in amazement at the machines. He was completely surprised when he saw how young the pilots were when they got out.

"They're just kids," he then said as he turned to Meirin.

"Don't let their appearance fool you. They were created as weapons and because of that they are as capable as a coordinator their age to use these machines." She told the Lieutenant who couldn't believe his ears at first but then remembered kids like them had been used by Logos as well.

"Do they need the same kind of treatment as the last batch that Logos used to attack armoury 1 six years ago?" the Lieutenant asked her.

"Unfortunately, yes. They do but we found a way to retain their memories and give them back to them. They will be lively teenagers on board but once they get into their machines they become someone else. It's like they switch off their humanity and start fighting like robots. So be careful about what you say or do to them on the battlefield since they're probably able to fly circles around you and take you out in no time. We have been training them to disable the enemy instead of killing them but that can't be guaranteed in the heat of battle, off course." Meirin answered the man standing next to her. The teenagers had already come closer to the three officers.

"Hey Meirin who's the hottie over here" Candy asked as she got to them.

"This man is your commanding officer aboard this ship, ensign." Meirin said with a firm voice as she looked at the three teenagers saluting to him.

"Sorry sir, didn't mean to insult you, sir" Candy apologised to the Lieutenant.

"I wasn't insulted but lets get introduced shall we. I'm Lieutenant Jason Halliburton, the commanding officer of the air or better space combat troops aboard the Hood. Now your names and rank." He straightened them out making Meirin smile at them.

"Ensign Candy LaFlaga, pilot of the Ghost Rider."

"Ensign Helen LaFlaga, pilot of the Cerberus."

"Ensign Joe LaFlaga, pilot of the Thunder." Joe answered as suddenly all alarms went off making the kids run to a computer terminal and started typing.

"What is going on?" The Captain asked the bridge.

"The Boaz fortress is under attack by a massive mobile suit force sir" the answer came back.

"What are those kids doing?" Lieutenant Halliburton asked Meirin.

"They're uploading their personal memories into a file and download military strategy files into their brains. They are getting themselves ready for battle. They will sound somewhat different once you're going out with them." Meirin said as she followed the Captain to the bridge.

"Lay in a course for Boaz ready the Godfrieds and Valiants, load aft missile tubes with sledge hammers" the Captain ordered the moment they got on the bridge.

"Sir instead of sledge hammers I suggest we switch to star-bursts, they were specially developed for anti mobile suit combat." Meirin advised the Captain.

"Make it so, number one." the Captain took her advise.

"CIC give me a status update." Meirin ordered as she took place in her seat.

"Godfrieds and Valiants ready, missile tubes loaded with star-bursts." the weapons officer informed her.

"Keep Eaglestellons on standby. We will need them too." Meirin ordered the CIC officers as the Captain ordered the ship to move in on the enemy suits near Boaz.

**CE 80, Fortress Boaz.**

"Commander, thirty percent of our mobile suits have been destroyed in the past three minutes and we also lost seven ships already. They seem to be fast and accurate. One of our pilots mentioned that this isn't humanly possible." an officer reported to the base Commander.

"Commander, the Voltaire and the Hood are coming in to help." another one reported.

"Sir, another swarm of these machines spotted near the New Heliopolis colony. The Peace Keepers are deploying but what the HELL are we up against." a third report was made.

"Sir, third swarm spotted near Artemis. It seems like the newly built Eurasian base is under attack too." the next report was relayed.

"Sir, message from the Federation Lunar Fleet. They are mobilising all their forces in order to help us." another report came in.

"Tell Admiral McKenzie not to attack here but ready themselves for a possible attack on them." the Commander ordered to this last report.

"Sir, Two more swarms are moving in on the Plants." a panicking officer yelled.

"Tell the entire fleet out here to fall back to the Plants and we will use whatever we have left to defend the Homeland from here. Activate all weapons and return fire." the Commander ordered as he turned to his communicator and opened a channel to the Voltaire and the Hood.

"Captain Rhodes, Commander Jewel the way things have changed by now I would rather see you move in on the forces that have been detected moving in on the Homeland. Get there to protect our home and leave us behind. We'll try to take down as many suits as we can out here but I'm afraid this base will fall again." The commander told them.

"We can help you" Isaac said as he looked at his maps.

"Don't, we'd rather give our lives protecting the Homeland from here then to let them get the Homeland from another place. Commander Jewel the Homeland is more important than us." the base commander finished all communications.

"Commander Castro is determined" Captain Rhodes said to Isaac "We should do as he says and protect the Plants."

"I don't have like it but maybe he's right." Isaac finished the conversation.

**CE 80, Aboard the Hood**

Meirin was getting ready to hand out orders as the battle would call for but she wondered where all those suits came from. The sheer numbers alone was too big to believe.

"Where could their mother ships be?" she wondered out loud.

"Good question." the Captain said as he looked at the officer in charge of the scanners.

"I can't find anything out here, sir." he answered.

"Scan for Radon particles, mirage colloid leaves a radon particle trace." Meirin ordered the scanner officer.

"But ma'am how do we do that. These scanners aren't meant to do this kind of scanning." He said wondering why she even gave that order.

"You have the kind of sensors installed on this ship to pick up any kind of radiation or particles you want and you can't even use them right?" Meirin wondered as she turned down her keyboard and started typing. A few minutes later she finished telling the officer he should be able to find what they were looking for. In the meanwhile they had closed in on the Plants and she ordered the people under her command to keep an eye on these machines coming in.

"Lieutenant Halliburton, get ready to launch all mobile suit and mobile armours aboard this ship." she ordered the young man.

"We're ready." He said as he winked at her.

"Candy, Helen,Joe as soon as you're out there do whatever the lieutenant orders you to do." Meirin ordered the teenagers who nodded.

The lieutenant was a bit surprised she needed to tell them but maybe there was a reason why she did it. Then he heard them talk amongst themselves.

"Candy are you ok." Helen asked.

"Not really but then again it is our first time we are going to do this for real." Candy answered.

"Don't worry, dad made sure we would be ready when the time would come." Joe assured them.

"Joe, this is no simulation." Candy said.

"You know kids, it's my first time on the battlefield too but if we keep it together we will survive." the Lieutenant put them at ease.

"It's easier for us to go out there than you seem to think." Candy said "You can't switch off your emotions like we're able to. If your emotions get in the way you freeze up and that would mean you're toast. We go out as robots with a survival instinct."

"And our hunger to survive makes us better than ordinary machines." Joe continued.

"Which means that only those with a greater hunger to survive can defeat us." Helen finished their conversation.

"Ok, all mobile armours and Strike Daggers have been launched now it's our turn." The lieutenant said as his suit was moved to the catapult. Soon he was launched as Helen moved to the catapult.

"Helen LaFlaga, Cerberus, launching"

"Joe LaFlaga, Thunder, Let's kick ass."

Candy pushed a few buttons on her keyboard and then got on the catapult.

"Candy LaFlaga, Ghost Rider, lets lock and load." she said as she launched.

On the bridge Meirin had kept an eye on the launches as she gave out orders to take out as many of these new suits they were fighting as they could. The Captain was sending the ship deeper into the battle area which Meirin noticed and advised not to do. Suddenly she heard the scanner officer that he had found a disguised ship but it was too far away to take it out.

"Tell the Jewel team to take care of it, they are nearer to them." The captain ordered as he looked over the battle. The Com-officer relayed the message and coordinates to the Voltaire.

"Captain, we should move further away from the battle area and fire our guns from behind the mobile suit forces instead of moving in this far." Meirin renewed her advise.

"This ship can handle it." He said trying to reassure her but she knew that it would just be a matter of time before one of these suits would be able to fire a well aimed shot taking out the ship. As the battle raged on outside the ship she felt useless since the Captain only seemed to be interested in getting the job done in a heroic way. Suddenly the ship was hit near the bridge which made a beam come down on the Captain.

"Captain NO," Meirin screamed as she got to him. A medic rushed in moments later to tell them the Captain was dead.

"Change course, ascend fifty degrees, aim Godfrieds to starboard and fire. Now lets get out of this place a bit further from the central stage of the battlefield. Keep firing at the suits and make sure they won't hit us again, recall all mobile suits to protect the ship as we move to a new position to defend the Plants." Meirin ordered while she looked at the lifeless body of her Captain. There were already casualty reports coming in from everywhere aboard ship. She kept ordering the crew to get the ship in the best defence position possible and take out as many of these new machines as possible. The Ghost Rider suddenly came out of nowhere taking out a few of the new machines that were closing in on the Hood.

"Sorry Lieutenant Commander for not staying close to the ship but we were a bit held up." Candy contacted the CIC.

"Just keep taking down these new machines and defend the sector. We already lost the Captain to these machines." Meirin ordered the teenager.

"We lost the Captain?" she heard Lieutenant Halliburton ask.

"Yes, we got hit near the bridge and a beam fell down on him. According to the medics he died instantly." Meirin told the CAG

"Why was he moving in this deep into enemy troops in the first place?" he asked again.

"I don't know either but I tried to convince him to keep a bit of distance between us and the enemy while we battle." Meirin told him.

"And he didn't listen. He wanted to prove himself so badly that he forgot all about basic combat strategy in space." He answered while taking out another machine.

**CE 80, Voltaire.**

Isaac had received the message from the Hood about the disguised ship in the neighbourhood so he ordered his Captain to shoot at the coordinates he had been given. As soon as the first shots hit target a large warship appeared out of nowhere. Isaac then ordered the pilots of the suits fighting close to him to follow him in order to take out that ship. The rest of them should keep defending the Plants while the Voltaire should keep firing at the ship as well. Soon another ship had moved in on that ship firing all guns in an attempt to destroy it too. The enemy ship was taking heavy damage while it tried to move off the battlefield as it returned fire. Isaac and his men had caught up with this ship and started to take out its weapons and engines. Several minutes later the ship exploded and everyone turned around back to the Plants' defence line.

"Sir we got a message from Boaz. Almost half the machines attacking the fortress suddenly stopped moving. Have you any idea why?" he was told by his ship's captain.

"Not a clue but be happy that they did. By the looks of it some machines near the Plants have stopped moving too so lets get in there an disable them before they activate again. We weren't quite successful in taking them down. They seem to have some kind of shield that they can use separated from their machines."

**CE 80, New Heliopolis space.**

The Archangel and the Eternal were fighting off the forces moving in while the Peace Keeper headquarters and the Morgenroete module had separated from the colony. The Morgenroete module was moving away while headquarters was moving in attack position as a small fortress. The Diane was still moving in from a distant sector as fast as they could but they still needed some time to catch up with the fleet while the Kusanagi was taking up a defence position near the colony. Kira was looking at the battlefield from the Eternal while Athrun had gone out with all the troops at their disposal.

"How could we have missed this?" Kira wondered as he looked at Lacus.

"Everyone missed it. These machines must have been built outside the range of our scanners, probably on Mars." Commodore Waltfelt figured.

"Impossible, our scout ships we sent to Mars 6 months ago should have picked up something if they were building them there." Lacus reminded them about the scouting mission to Mars in order to find a suitable location to build a colony on Mars where naturals and coordinators would live together.

"Maybe they were building them somewhere within the asteroid belt. It's not as if we were actually looking for them there." Kira realised a mistake they made "We thought they were operating from inside the Earth sphere but never considered the possibility of them operating from outside it."

"Whatever the case we have to stop them here and now" Cagali said as she looked to Earth "Or Orb will burn again. I wish I was home again to help our people."

"It isn't your fault you're here now. We had to negotiate this new deal with the Plant council on bringing in more resources from them to finish the construction of the colony." Lacus reminded her of the deal they made just an hour ago.

Aboard the Diane Myrialia was looking at the battle in the distance while she gave the order to keep an eye out for possible ambushes.

"Captain, we detected a cloaked ship nearby, it seems to be monitoring the battle." Arthur told her.

"Activate weapons and fire at that ship. According the report we received from the Voltaire the moment they destroyed the ship near the Plants a significant number of these machines stopped moving but not all of the machines were stopped. Somehow I have the feeling we need to find the mother ships in order to stop them all. Unfortunately we can detect only cloaked ships when we're close enough." Myr said as she turned on her Com link to the launch bay "Commander Elmsman send out Lunamaria and some of our mobile suits. We're going after a mother ship. Tell them to come in from behind us while we lay down a barrage on them."

"Consider it done" Deearka replied as he turned off communication.

He gave Lunamaria and two pilots the order to go out and do what the Captain had asked them to do. As soon as the Diane had engaged in battle with the enemy ship the Impulse and two Zacoos were launched to take out the weapons and engines of the ship. But once the weapons and engines were disabled the ship exploded again.

"What fools." Luna wondered as she looked at the wreckage.

"Return to the Diane." she heard the X O's orders to which she immediately turned her suit around and went back to the Diane while it still was making its way to new Heliopolis.

"Captain fire the deuterium beam. I'll stay outside until we reach New Heliopolis." Luna decided to keep an eye on the battle from outside the ship.

"Ok, but also keep an eye out for an ambush. Shin and Jason will join you any minute." Myr told her pilot.

Aboard the Archangel Admiral Ramius was relaying orders as fast as she could to keep the enemy suits as far from the colony as possible. She got a message from the Diane about a delay because they were going to attack an enemy ship nearby.

"Another mother ship? We might be fighting an entire army out here." Murue said as she kept her eyes on the view screen.

"Admiral, Captain LaFlaga just told me that a number of these new machines have stopped moving and are being taken out as we speak." her XO relayed a message.

"That means the Diane has already taken out the mother ship. Lets keep pushing them back." she replied.

"Ma'am fresh troops moving in from sector 18" the XO reported making the Admiral look at her surprised.

"Sector 18?" she asked "Where are they coming from?"

"Unknown. But it seems like they're going to launch an attack on New Heliopolis. The evacuation orders have been given." the XO relayed the message.

"Damned, we need to retreat and protect the civilians." Murue ordered as she opened a channel to the mobile suit troops out in the field "Captain, the colony is under attack. We need to withdraw and protect the civilians."

"We're on our way." Mu said as he relayed the order.

Aboard the Eternal Kira had given the same orders as the ship turned towards the colony while he started running to his mobile suit. He remembered the day Heliopolis was destroyed the first time he didn't want this to happen again.

"Damned Omega Force" he cursed while he boarded the Freedom and started it up. As soon as he was out he asked to drop his meteor and when he had it equipped he headed to the colony.

**CE 80, Plants space.**

"No, Boaz has fallen again." Meirin said while everyone on the bridge was looking at the exploding fortress.

"Commander, Artemis is gone too and the troops from there are moving in on us now as well as the troops from Boaz." one of her fellow officers said.

"Commander, the Federation Lunar fleet is moving in as well but it seems like the base is being abandoned as well. There are shuttles heading away from the base in the direction of New Heliopolis. But why? They haven't been attacked." another officer relayed the latest report.

"Because whoever is behind this wants to make it look as if the Federation is behind this." Meirin said "The Lunar fleet is probably in pursuit of the mobile suits we're fighting now but we should evacuate the Plants now that we still have a chance. If we don't we are done for. Get me the council on the line."

"Ma'am, it seems like the council has already given the evacuation order. A lot of high speed shuttles are leaving the Plants. Lets hope we can get at least 80 percent of the civilians out of there before we go down." her Com officer told her.

"That's good, aim the Lohengrins at the incoming suits and fire when ready, inform the Lunar fleet to stay out of the way." Meirin ordered her tactical officer who did as she asked. A few moments later the positron canon fired a volley at the machines coming in from the remains of the Boaz fortress.

"Ma'am message coming in from the Plant council. They request the assistance of the Hood to take the lead on escorting the civilian shuttles to safety. What do we tell them?"

"Recall all mobile suits and mobile armours, we're going to escort the civilian shuttles. Give Commander Jewel a heads up on our situation." Meirin said as she ordered the Helmsman to set a course for the civilian fleet.

Isaac was fighting off a few more suits but he saw comrade after comrade loose their lives while they tried to take out the new machines.

"Move in close to them, they don't do well in a close combat situation." Isaac heard a voice over his Com system.

"Who are you?" he asked the stranger.

"I'm general John Smith, 51st space combat troops." the man introduced himself.

"Also known as 'The Space Bulls'" Isaac remembered these elite soldiers "Even you yourself have a nickname: the masked destroyer."

"So it seems, but lets keep on fighting these pests as long as we can. Oh, one other thing, when we retreat can we come with you since we lost our ship just a few moments ago." the general asked while taking out another enemy machine.

"No problem, I already lost a great deal of good pilots too so there will be room for what's left of your unit." Isaac replied.

"I only have half of my unit left but we will survive this as long as we fight the way I just told you to." The general said as they took out a few more enemies.

**CE 80, New Heliopolis space.**

All the battleships in the area had gathered around the civilian fleet and started to escort them away from the battlefield while the enemy was destroying the Peace Keeper Headquarters. Kira was looking at it from his Freedom with tears in his eyes. All the work they had put in it was now destroyed and the colony was also on the brink of collapsing. The damage to it was too severe to remain intact. The shuttles from the Federation had also hooked up with them as well while the fleet of shuttles were heading towards a position they had all agreed on outside the Earth sphere. He was receiving the latest reports on the battle near the Plants where the remaining battle fleet was retreating while the new machines were destroying the remainders of the Plants. He felt helpless as he looked at the fleet he was protecting. The enemy had shown to him that they couldn't care less about who they killed as long as victory was achieved. They attacked civilians without any remorse. If this was their way of fighting he didn't know how to fight back. If it had been a pure fight between military units he could fight but now the face of war had changed. In this war everyone was a target as long as they weren't allied to the enemy or obeying them. He was thinking about where to run now as he looked at the Morgenroete module that was still intact and suddenly it hit him.

"Chief Simmons, start loading the colony ships with everything we have on the Morgenroete module. We're going to move the fleet to Mars" He contacted the engineer in charge of Morgenroete.

"Sir, we only have three ships and we need at least four ships like these in order to get everything out of here." she responded.

"Load whatever is left in small cargo's on the ships that still have some room. The Eternal has still some space left in the mobile suit bay since we lost a lot of suits on the battlefield."

"I'll see what I can do." she said as she started to make the necessary calculations on where she should send the remaining materials on the station.

Aboard the Eternal Lacus had asked for a meeting with the chairwoman of the Plant council and Cagali.

"We have to decide what to do from this point on. As things are now, we are on the run and we need to get some kind of government in the fleet so it would be best if we assign a military and a civilian leader amongst the unified forces we have out here." Lacus opened the discussion.

"Who will represent the Federation on this matter?" Cagali asked.

"They have asked me to represent them." a young man walked in "My name is Frederick Jones, I am an aid of Admiral McKenzie."

"Welcome," Lacus said as she showed him a seat. "We were about to discuss how we are going to keep some kind of order within the fleet. We need to decide on a civilian leader and a military leader in this unified fleet. If it were up to me I'd say let the Peace Keepers take charge but this is not what we had in mind when we created the corps."

"As things are now the Peace Keepers are best suited to lead the entire military fleet and we should take a vote on which one of us should lead the civilians." Cagali proposed.

"The Peace Keepers are best suited to take military command even though some people might not agree." The chairwoman said as she looked at the Federation representative.

"Admiral McKenzie knew that something like this would come up eventually so he told me to tell you that if the Peace Keepers weren't put in charge that you were idiots since they are the ones who can keep an army of this size comprised of different forces unified. Since we are all off different factions we need some unifying leadership. We still have quite a number of ships left. The problem is that most of them need repairs. We have to do them in the field with whatever materials we can find. As for civilian leadership we need someone who is liked by naturals as well as the coordinators and we feel that Ms Cagali would be best suited to be that person. If she upholds the ideals of her nation and we live according these ideals and laws we can make it." The aid said.

"I agree." the Plant chairwoman nodded.

"Hey,why me?" Cagali asked.

"Because Orb is a nation where naturals and coordinators have found a way to live together in peace and you have upheld the ideals of your father and right now we need those right here in the fleet. You're the right person for this job. Right now about 100000 civilians and soldiers rely on us to protect them and you could lead them." Lacus said as she smiled at Cagali who reluctantly accepted the job.

"So first order of business is to find out whatever supplies we have and where should we go." Cagali made up her mind.

"Well when we left the Lunar base we took as many supplies as we could carry with us. Right now the base is almost empty and we have booby trapped it if the enemy would enter the base. So whatever weapons and ammo left there can't be taken by them." the Federation representative told them.

"We left the Plants in a hurry so we weren't able to take many supplies with us but several supply ships from our agricultural colonies were on route to the cities so they have been diverted to the fleet but I don't know how much they were carrying. As soon as they hook up with us we should do an inventory. As for other supplies, we have a few ships with construction materials and several with military supplies." the chairwoman told Cagali.

"Kira has ordered the immediate transfer of all supplies on the Morgenroete module. These include a large cargo of food since they were meant to be sent along with the upcoming Mars colonisation mission. These food supplies are already transferred to a ship soon the remaining supplies will be divided amongst the fleet and the Morgenroete module will be destroyed." Lacus added.

"We could use the module's hull plating to repair our ships" The federation representative proposed.

"We don't have the luxury to dismantle the station. The enemy might come after us eventually but we are taking as much repair supplies as possible from the station with us." Lacus told him making him realise how dire their situation was.

**Chapter 3 A New Hope?**

**AC 205, Asteroid base.**

Heero had gathered everyone again in the briefing room after they had been testing their machines extensively. He wanted to know what they thought of their new machines. He also wanted Dorothy's and Sally's assessment of their assignment.

"Well, what do you think about your new machines?" Heero asked them.

"The Epyon exceeded my expectations, I think it will do just fine." Zechs answered.

"Nataku is ready for the next battle." Wu Fei said.

"The Heavy Arms guns aren't that bad since you can fire them continuously for at least an hour before they start to overheat. If I change my style of combat a little the enemy will have something to worry about" Trowa reported "If we can improve the cooling system a little this Gundam will be a monster to the enemy."

"The Death Scythe can sneak up on the enemy even better than I imagined." Duo snickered as he thought on how he surprised Zechs.

"Yes it does." Zechs smiled as he remembered how easily Duo sneaked up on him and tapped on the back of his Gundam.

"The Sandrock is good enough for me but when is that shield ready?" Quattre wanted to know.

"It will be ready in a few hours. Dr. J. is still doing some last minute tests on it." Heero answered as he looked at Lady Une.

"The Vayate is very good. I will use it." she said as she looked at Mariemaya.

"The Mercurius is better then I imagined." the teenage girl said as she smile.

"The Raging Taurus outperforms my Taurus." Noin said with a little enthusiasm.

"The Wing Peace Keeper performs beyond my expectations but don't expect me to head out with you guys right away." Relena said with a smile. Heero was glad to hear her say she wouldn't go out there with them if it wouldn't be necessary.

"Sally, do you have any comments?" Heero asked.

"Well, even though my staff is a bit green I think they can handle themselves." Sally reported "I checked the medical supplies and they will be sufficient for as long we don't have too many injured to take care off."

"I could use someone on the bridge with more command experience. All the people on the bridge are too green for my taste" Dorothy reported.

"I already talked to Rasheed and he is willing to help you on the bridge. Officially he will be an advisor but we both know he will be making some command decisions when necessary." Heero assured Dorothy who was happy with Heero's decision.

"Did you really think we'd leave you all alone on the bridge?" Relena said with a smile as she looked at her friend.

"No but we all know that being a ship's commander is not really my cup of tea." Dorothy doubted herself.

"You did handle yourself well the last time you were in charge." Zechs remembered when she was in charge of the Libra station.

"Yes, but I would feel better with Rasheed at my side to advice me on what to do if I don't know what to do any more." Dorothy said as she looked at everyone.

"You'll do just fine." Relena assured her as she stood up "We should start to prepare to go out there and lets hope we can find out what's going on at the other side of the anomaly. We need to put out this inferno before it spreads out here."

"We'll do our best. But lets hope we can negotiate first before we need to fight. I'm not really looking forward to fighting another war" Wu Fei said as he thought about his daughter back home. He wanted to be there for her as she'd be growing up. Sally walked up to her husband and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I miss her too." She said to him as he turned around and embraced her. Everyone in the briefing room were thinking of the people they left back home. Relena laid her head on Heero's shoulder thinking about her mother while Zechs laid an arm around Lucrezia's shoulders thinking about their own children. Lady Une laid her head against Trowa's chest as she thought about their own boy back home while Quattre embraced Dorothy thinking about his sisters back on the L4 colony group. Duo looked out the window thinking about Hilde.

"She'll be all right." Heero guessed his thoughts making Duo turn around to face his friend.

"Yeah, she's a tough one but I hope I'll be home in time to be there when our baby will be born." Duo said looking forward to being a father.

"What are you hoping for? A boy or a girl?" Lu decided to lighten the mood.

"Personally, I'm hoping for a girl with the looks of her father and the smarts of her mother but if it would be a boy it would be okay too. Just as long as our child doesn't grow up to become like us." Duo said with a smile on his face.

"We are going to make sure of that. But we can't make their decisions in life for them. Jessica is already talking about joining the Preventers some day. I guess she's more like her old man then I had hoped." Zechs told everyone.

"She also looks a lot like you, except for her hair colour which she has her mother to thank for." Relena thought about her niece "but if she wants to be a Preventer when she's grown up we shouldn't stand in her way."

"I don't mind if she can handle it. In all honesty I hoped that at least one of our children would pick up from us when we decide to leave off some day" Lu said as she looked at her husband who nodded with a smile.

"We should raise our children in the spirit of the Sanck kingdom so they wouldn't grow up raising a new war." Heero said thinking about the future. Everyone nodded in agreement as they walked out returning to their duties.

**CE 80, Peace Keeper Fleet.**

The fleet had gathered at the position Kira had decided to go to outside the Earth sphere. He was looking at the fleet outside the Eternal as he wondered if he was making the right decision on moving to Mars but as it stood there were about 100000 people he needed to protect while they still had to be vigilant for attacks. He had the Diane protecting the rear while the Hood was assigned to the left flank while he had the Eternal positioned on the right flank. The Archangel was leading the fleet. He also had the Voltaire and the Federation ship Enterprise positioned right behind the Archangel since these ships weren't as damaged as the rest of the warships within the fleet. Most of them were trying to repair them as best as they could but they had limited supplies for repairs so something needed to be done about that before they were attacked again. Kira had considered sharing the supplies he had at their disposal but the captains of all these ships told him to keep them for themselves since they could be needing them as well after a battle. They were all doing the best at repairing their ships with what they had left. One captain had decided that his ship should be dismantled since it was damaged beyond repair and use the parts that were still useful to repair the ships that were still good enough to repair. Lacus had joined Kira making him look at her.

"What's on your mind Kira?" Lacus asked him.

"I was wondering if I was making the right decision about moving to Mars." Kira answered.

"For the moment it's our best option but we need to get an agricultural colony there as fast as possible and we need to decide how to run this colony. Not everyone will be as lucky to get down to live in the colony since we didn't plan on taking so many people with us when were planning on building a Mars colony. I've heard that we will be running out of food in three months unless we find other ways to get to food. There is enough water on Mars so at least we don't have to worry about that. We could start to mine the ice near the polar caps and purify it to drinkable water." Lacus told Kira who was also aware about the food shortage.

"But we can't let the people live aboard the shuttles either for a prolonged time. We should let them off ship to help in the colony in shifts so everyone gets a chance to have solid ground under their feet for a while." Kira proposed.

"Cagali is already discussing it with the civilian representatives. This could work out just fine as long as we can keep everyone fed. But the main problem remains on how we can accomplish that." Lacus reminded Kira.

"Let me worry about that." Kira said as he turned around and went to the briefing room where he was going to meet his commanding mobile suit officers. Lacus walked in the opposite direction to meet with the chairwoman of the Plants, Admiral McKenzie and Admiral Ramius to discuss what to do once they had arrived at Mars. When Kira came in the briefing room he saw a masked man standing next to Isaac. He was a tall man with long brown hair and Kira noticed he had steel blue eyes but most of his face was covered with a mask.

"Admiral Yamato, this is General Smith. He told me he had some useful information concerning the enemy suits." Isaac explained the man's presence.

"I remember the name from somewhere." Kira remembered his name from somewhere but he couldn't pin down from where.

"Yes, we once considered him to ask him to join us but 'the space bulls' had a stained reputation at the time. So we decided to wait until we were sure about him." Athrun reminded Kira

"Lately they became somewhat of a Peace Keeper unit within the Zaft forces. How did you get that done general?" Deearka asked.

"I re-educated the men under my command. I also asked the council for the freedom to act on our own when necessary since I was no longer in the mood of taking orders from the council. Surprisingly they agreed to my request since they were the ones responsible for letting Durandle use us to kill Lacus. I was one the lucky ones not to be assigned to this mission. Even if I was selected I would have resigned my commission. It was a wrong order. When I heard they were taken out I became the officer in charge of the bulls. It was there and then I decided to train the men as I saw fit. During the final stages of the last war I ordered my men to stand down and leave the fighting to those who still believed this was a righteous war. I myself didn't believe we were doing the right thing at the end of the war. I believed in the heart of the people and yes, we may be fighting animals but deep in our hearts we all want total peace." General Smith finished his story.

"You talk like a philosopher and yet you're a soldier." Isaac wondered about this man.

"I tend to be a bit of both." the general said "But lets focus on why we are here. As you all probably know I was found in a cockpit in deep space ten years ago. I didn't know who I was and didn't know what to do. The doctors nursed me back to health and over time I decided to render my services to Zaft. Up until today I only remembered bits and pieces of my past but as soon as I saw the new machines I started to remember a war in which they were used before I ended up here. These machines are known as Virgo mobile dolls. They are nothing more then machines controlled by a computer. When Isaac destroyed that mother ship close to the Plants he took out one of these computers which also decimated their forces in the nearby area. If we had been able to detect the other mother ships we could have taken them all out but that would have been hard to accomplish since they surprised us. We weren't ready for them at the time and most of our troops weren't aware of these machines' weaknesses. They do extremely well on fighting over a distance but close in on them and they are vulnerable. They weren't designed with close combat in mind. Better put this is a coward's weapon."

"What makes you say that." Isaac wondered.

"Because those in charge of these machines are not actually fighting out there themselves. They just push buttons. This way they don't know the horrors of war." the general explained.

"And by using machines they don't know grief or remorse." Kira started to realise the general's trail of thoughts.

"We should also discuss other matters now." Athrun took over the briefing "For now we have enough food to make the trip to Mars and a few months when we get there but we need to find other food sources in order to keep 100000 people alive. The best way I can think off is to attack their shipping lines and take over their supply ships. If we do it right no one needs to get hurt."

"The exact number of mouths to feed is 98562 civilians and soldiers" General Smith told Athrun who looked at the man with a surprised face. "_How could he be so accurately informed about the number of people in the fleet?_" he wondered to himself.

"I would like to take my men out and start looking for supplies out there and do a little recon to see what is happening on Earth." the general proposed to Kira.

"Not yet, we have to get to Mars first and I want to keep the fighting strength within this fleet at maximum for now since we could be attacked from elsewhere in space. We figure that they have been building these machines somewhere out here. Up until now our best guess is that they built them in the asteroid belt." Kira declined his offer.

"I see, well then we should at least start to decide who should take on the responsibility of going back to secure the supplies we need." the general agreed with Kira.

"Well since you already volunteered you can start preparing your men for this mission. Isaac, you will go too I think the both of you can work together well." Athrun started to give out orders "The Voltaire will be going out there together with the Diane in order to ambush a few shipping lines and get as much food as you can get your hands on while we organise the fleet around Mars. Once the fleet has been organised the faster ships will come in to help to secure more food supplies until the colony becomes self sufficient. Then we could focus on liberating Earth."

"That will take a lot of time." Mu finally said something "We can't just let the people on Earth wait for us to come back. It takes years for a colony to become self sufficient. I think we shouldn't limit our attacks to just shipping lines. If possible we should take out some of their bases as well when we get the chance. We will be relying on hit and run tactics for the time being. But at some point we must give the people on Earth a sign we haven't forgotten about them. This way we may have their support when we need it."

"I know, but getting our hands on food still should be our primary goal." Athrun agreed reluctantly but when he looked at Kira he knew that Mu was right.

"Then this matter is settled." Kira closed the briefing. Everyone walked out whereas Athrun and Kira remained.

"You know Kira, Mu's right. We should fight them as well as taking over their supplies. But is it the right thing to do?" Athrun wondered.

"We have to do what we have to do now. We should be doing what we think is right at this moment and if we were wrong and things go wrong well we can always reflect and regret later. We have no way of knowing what awaits us in the future." Kira reminded Athrun of something Admiral Ramius once said to them when they decided to form the Peace Keeper corps.

**CE 80, Near the anomaly.**

The Peace Enforcer had arrived in this new space which was exactly the same as the space they had left. Heero ordered the ship to move further away in order to make room for the supply ships to move in. Heero was looking out of the window where he saw both ships arrive. He then turned to Dorothy and gave the order to head deeper into this alternate space. As they were moving out they started scanning around for possible ships that could be out there.

"Heero, why did you shave yourself?" Relena asked.

"I don't know it felt like I should do it" he answered.

"So you felt it too." Zechs walked without his moustache.

"This morning Mariemaya was about to cut her hair too. I was able to talk her out of that but she felt something compelling her to." Lady Une told everyone on the bridge.

"I guess we all felt it." Quattre said as he looked around and saw all of them nodding.

"I feel whoever is coming this from is here. Because it's stronger here." Relena said making everyone a bit uneasy. Suddenly the ensign in charge of the scanners told them he saw a large blip on his screen but he couldn't make out if it was one ship or a fleet since they were too far away to be sure.

"Have you any idea where it is heading?" Dorothy asked.

"My best guess is that this body is heading to Mars. Well their Mars. It's a bit confusing." he answered.

"Yes it confusing. But keep an eye on it" Dorothy ordered the ensign.

"Head out to Mars." Heero ordered the helmsman as he turned to his friends "I think we might get some information from whoever is flying out there. As we close in on Mars we will be able to find out what we're dealing with out here. Inform the Peacemillion and the Mogol."

As they were heading to Mars the picture became clearer on the monitors and when they were sure it was a fleet of ships Heero looked at Duo.

"Let me guess, you want me to scout that fleet" the braided man said as he turned around.

"Be careful out there." Heero reminded his friend.

"No sweat, I'll make sure to be back. I don't want to miss out on the birth of my baby." he replied confidently.

Heero was still worried when he saw his friend take off with the Death Scythe. Relena walked up next to him and reassured him that Duo wouldn't overdo it for now.

"When we reach Mars send the Peacemillion and the Mogol in low orbit around the planet while we remain in high orbit. I want them to see us. If we're lucky they might send some scouts too. Just keep an eye out for trouble." Heero told Dorothy who immediately relayed that order while he left for the briefing room followed by all the mobile suit pilots and Relena. When they had entered the briefing room he spoke up.

"I want Lady Une, Mariemaya, Noin and Quattre to go to the supply ships with your Gundams. I want to be sure that if this fleet heading here is hostile that our ships are protected." he told them which made them leave the room and get ready to launch.

"What are we supposed to do?" Zechs asked.

"The rest of us makes sure that our machines are ready for take off just in case. We're going to stay on standby. Relena you don't have to come with us if you don't feel up to it." He told his wife who nodded. They all got out to prepare their machines while they saw the Vayate, the Mercurius, the Raging Taurus and the Sandrock take of. As soon as they had taken off the launch bay retracted into it's defence position. Heero followed everything happening on the bridge from his cockpit.

Duo was closing in on the fleet and started to take pictures of all the ships he saw. As he looked at the damaged vessels which were surrounding the unarmed ships in the centre of the fleet he wondered what had happened to them.

"It seems like they have been in battle for some time. Could they be on the run from their enemies?" he wondered out loud as he kept scanning the ships. He suddenly picked up something else on his radar and decided to take a closer look.

Aboard the Archangel Admiral Ramius was looking at the Peace Enforcer with a surprised face.

"Could they be the enemy?" she wondered.

"I don't know." Mu answered "But that wouldn't make sense since they all attacked us from cloaked ships. Why would they change tactics now. If they want to take us out they would go about it the same way they did before. A cloaked ship near one of the moons while they have their dolls deployed elsewhere. A perfect ambush. We should send Candy out to asses the situation."

"Make it so." Murue said as she worried for her daughter's life.

"Don't worry, she'll be careful not to give away her position. She is an expert at this kind of missions." Mu assured her.

Duo had finally reached close enough to the new signatures he had picked up and got the surprise of a lifetime. Numerous mobile Dolls moving in on the fleet he was just scouting.

"This is going to be a massacre." He yelled as he relayed a message to the Peace Enforcer while turning around his Gundam as he set course for the nearest battleship. Once he got there he tapped on the hull of the ship making someone look out the window.

Kira was surprised as he saw this strange Gundam outside the bridge.

"How the Hell did he get here unnoticed?" he wondered.

"He must have some kind of stealth technology and he is trying to contact us. Ah, found his frequency." the communications officer told him.

"Get the unarmed ships within your fleet out of here, the mobile dolls are coming out here any minute." they heard Duo yell.

"Do as he says." Kira said as he looked at the radar screen where he saw that something was heading their way. When he looked up again he saw the Death Scythe taking up a defence position.

"All pilots, board your machines, we're under attack." Athrun ordered as he ran out with Kira. Commander Waltfelt ordered all nearby warships to turn towards the position where the mobile dolls were coming from.

Aboard the Archangel the admiral was looking at the pictures Candy had sent to her. This ship seemed something else than what they had been up against in the past. She wondered where the mobile suit bay was positioned in case they needed to take a shot at it making it impossible to launch these despicable machines at them.

Heero received Duo's message making him order all Gundam pilots to launch.

"Heero, I'll be going out too." he heard Relena say.

"What?" he yelled

"Don't worry, I'm going to join Noin and the others and send Quattre to you guys. I'm not in a hurry to get into my first battle." Relena put him at ease.

"Very well" Heero said knowing she was right about this. One more Gundam could make a difference out there.

"Make sure you stay close to Lu." Relena heard her brother tell her.

"I will." she answered while she launched in her Gundam and headed straight for the supply ships.

Candy watched in amazement as she saw the Gundams launch from this new ship. She wondered whether they were enemy suits or friendlies. She kept sending pictures to the Archangel about the placement of the mobile suit bay which was retracting again.

"Wing Peace Keeper to unknown mobile suit." Candy heard a voice over the Com link "Whatever you're doing here is of no importance now. You can join me or head back to your own ship but be aware: there are mobile dolls moving in on the fleet you belong to."

Candy wondered how she had been discovered as she looked at the machine that just passed her. She kept an eye on it until she saw the supply ships in low orbit around the planet still sending images over to the Archangel.

"Admiral, I've been detected by them but they made no effort to attack me. Moreover they asked me to join them near two other ships they have out here." Candy reported to Murue.

"They didn't attack you?" she heard her mother ask.

"That's right." Candy answered.

"Well since we are about to be under attack by the mobile dolls and possibly these new machines heading our way we are sending all the civilian ships closer to Mars with a small escort of warships. If those new machines are on our side they will help us if not...well then we were wrong about moving out here." Murue told her daughter.

"I don't think we were wrong. They must be here to help us." Candy replied as she moved towards the supply ships. Once she was on the way she saw another Gundam making its way towards the fleet without even bothering to contact her. As soon as she had caught up with the supply ships she noticed three more Gundams out there.

"Who are these people?" she wondered out loud as she opened a channel "This is ensign Candy LaFlaga of the Peace Keepers. Identify yourselves."

"I'm chief Preventer Une in the service of the Peace Keepers" she heard another woman tell her.

"My name is Lucrezia Noin, Preventer agent now serving the Peace Keepers." another woman introduced herself

"Mariemaya Kushrenada, civilian, just helping out." she heard a teenage voice.

"Relena Dorlian, foreign minister, I'd like to have a talk with your leaders as soon as this crisis has been averted." she heard the voice of the woman who previously asked her to join her.

"Some of our ships are moving in this direction. Our leader has ordered me to help them protect them. Are you going to help us too?" Candy asked.

"That's exactly what we're here for." Relena told her.

Aboard the Diane everyone was preparing to launch. Lunamaria boarded her machine as she ordered to have an energy pack on standby just in case. Shin and Jason boarded their machines wondering about the new machines coming in. Deearka told everyone to be careful since the situation was not clear yet.

Kira and Athrun had boarded their machines wondering why this guy in that stealth suit warned them unless he was at war with these new machines too.

Aboard the Hood Helen and Joe received orders to protect the civilian ships and join up with Candy. They didn't like it but decided to follow orders. They immediately joined the fleet of ships heading to the safety of Mars after launch.

Soon the warships were engaged in battle while the civilians made a run for their life. Suddenly a few mobile dolls crossed their path and Joe and Helen moved in to take them out but they were too late to protect the shuttle they were attacking.

"No, there were about 70 people aboard that ship." Joe yelled in anger. "Lets keep a better eye out for them."

"We are not going to loose another civilian ship." Helen said as she moved in a better position to keep a look out. She noticed the Ghost Rider moving in on an attack vector with four more Gundams behind it. Then she noticed several more mobile dolls moving in until Candy had caught up with them and started to take them out with the help of the other suits.

"_Come on Relena, you can do this."_ Relena thought to herself as she moved in on a mobile doll. Seconds later the doll was reduced to scrap.

"One down, several more to go" Relena thought out loud as she repositioned herself behind Noin who was about to be shot at from behind and fired her riffle again.

"Thanks Relena, for saving my butt." Noin said as she took out two more machines.

"Be careful..." Mariemaya shouted at Candy who was about to be surrounded by five of them but Candy turned around taking out the one nearest to her and then Lady Une fired at the two moving in from the side while Mariemaya sent the shield modules over to Candy's suit defending it from the other shots coming in. Relena and Noin jumped at them taking them out one by one.

"Thanks guys, but who are you really?" Candy asked.

"Ma'am, cloaked ship detected 25 kilometres behind the main battlefield." the CIC officer told Dorothy who looked at the main screen where the detected ship was displayed.

"Move the ship around the battlefield until we are in firing range of that ship and then fire a volley with the buster canons. They'll have to reveal themselves in order to fight back. We don't destroy the ship, just disable it so we can interrogate the crew." Dorothy ordered.

At the main battlefield all mobile suits and ships were taking out as many dolls as they possibly could while the Peace Enforcer was moving elsewhere. Some captains in the fleet wondered what that ship was doing until they saw the ships canons fire at a point in space revealing another ship. The Diane immediately turned around firing at the newly discovered ship while the Impulse and two other suits started an attack run at it disabling their weapons and engines but as before the ship exploded moments later and the mobile dolls stopped moving. Heero had noticed the Gundam like mobile suits that were flying out there mixed in with several different kinds of mobile suits.

"All Gundams except for Relena return to the nearest ship." Heero ordered them to retreat. Zechs didn't really agree with it but he knew that it had to be done in order to gain their trust. Duo, Trowa, Quattre, Wu Fei followed him to the Enforcer while Une,Mariemaya and Noin flew over to Peacemillion. Relena decided to contact Candy again.

"Tell your superiors to retreat all mobile suits before either side does something regrettable. We didn't come out here to fight, we came to restore peace." Relena told Candy.

Aboard the Archangel Murue had gotten Candy's message and she contacted Kira about what to do.

"Isn't it obvious what we should do." Kira told her "Have all mobile suits retreat. They have already retreated but tell Candy to stay near the other suit that's still out there. I'll stay with this one here."

Soon the signal flares were sent out and all mobile suits were going back to their ships. Kira looked at the machine in front of him and sized it up.

"Joe and Helen are a bit too far out to return to the Hood" Mu told Murue over the intercom "They should land elsewhere if they can."

"Joe, Helen is there a ship you can land on nearby?" Murue asked her children.

"That lady who Candy's supposed to keep an eye on offered us a ride on one of her ships nearby and since there are no other ships nearby we can land on, it seems like a good suggestion. She also said we could return to the Hood as soon as they get near it. Our machines will be left alone as well. They have no interest in taking us prisoner." Joe answered. Murue wasn't really sure about it but decided to let them go to the strangers' ship. Once the two of them had landed on Peacemillion Admiral Ramius got an incoming communication.

"I am Lady Une, chief Preventer of the Earth Sphere United Nations and the children that just boarded our ship will remain under our protection until we can safely hand them back to you." Admiral Ramius looked at her screen at a woman with a kind face and a soft sounding voice.

"I am Murue Ramius, admiral in the Peace Keeper Corps. I hope that you are a woman of your word. If something happens to them so help me..." Murue started but got interrupted by Une.

"My daughter is getting acquainted with them and they are having a drink together. We don't want anything to happen to any of them, do we?" Lady Une tried to gain Ramius' trust as.

"Your daughter?" Ramius asked wondering if this woman was nuts. _Bringing a child to a battlefield? The woman couldn't be any older than... thirty? Her child couldn't be any older than... ten? Unless she had been... a teenage mum?_ Questions that ran through Murue's mind but for now she had to trust that woman and agreed to let her take care of her children.

"Can I speak to them?" Murue asked Une.

"Sure you can, Joe, Helen, your mother wants to speak to you." Une called for them and soon both their faces filled the screen.

"Hey mum, we are safe here for now. And Mariemaya rocks." Joe said in enthusiasm.

"You don't have to worry about us. Worry about Candy. She's still out there with Relena. They're sitting ducks if we get attacked again." Helen expressed her concerns.

"Just keep out of trouble you two. And listen to Lady Une until you're with the fleet again." Murue said as she worried for all of them.

"They will be fine for now. But unfortunately I need to cut transmission since the enemy could still be here somewhere." Lady Une told Murue who nodded in agreement.

Aboard the Voltaire General Smith was looking at the scene out in space while Isaac joined him.

"What is going on here?" Isaac wondered.

"They're sizing up each other's suits. I wonder what they are waiting for. They should start talking, they both want the same." the general answered as he got angry.

"What do you mean?" Isaac asked.

"Heero and Kira want to keep the peace by any means necessary, even fight for it when the times demand it. Heero wouldn't be here if something hadn't happened where I come from. I started to remember who I am and where I came from in the past few days. I knew every suit but one out there on the battlefield today. The one facing Kira's Freedom is the Wing Zero. The ultimate Gundam piloted by the perfect soldier. This is a combination as deadly as the Freedom and the perfect coordinator. Maybe I should push them a little." the general said as he walked over to the communication centre "use this frequency to talk to the other Gundam and open a channel to the Freedom too."

Heero was still looking at the mobile suit in front of him while he wondered if the other pilot would be willing to talk to him.

"Kira, Heero listen to me. Stop sizing up each other and start talking. This war is already out of control we don't need another faction to fight off in this war." Heero heard a familiar voice over the Com-link. _This can't be. He's dead._

Heero decided to open his cockpit and flew up to the machine in front of him. Kira looked surprised at the suit in front of him._ Is he mad?_ He decided to do as the other pilot and got his seat out of the cockpit. When Heero and Kira were face to face Heero started to smile at the younger pilot.

"My name is Heero Yui, I'm here to restore the peace in my Home world. Several days ago a research station was attacked by an old ghost we thought we had gotten rid off. We found out that it came from beyond the anomaly which we found between Mars and the asteroid belt in space. When we entered it we ended up here: an alternate reality to our own. We didn't know what we would find out here but we came here to find out how many factions there are and how we could help you to obtain peace. We came here in the hopes we could negotiate with you and every other faction out here. Unfortunately we happened to end up fighting a common enemy the moment we meet." Heero explained their presence.

"I'm Kira Yamato, the supreme commander of the Peace Keepers. When your pilot warned us we weren't sure whether we could trust you or fear you but your actions spoke for themselves. I also wonder what you mean by an alternate reality. You mean there is a reality out there similar to our own?" Kira spoke up.

"There was a time we used to fight with mobile suits and mobile dolls but it almost ended up in the complete destruction of the Earth we know. We were fighting a war that was turning the Earth and all the space colonies against each other. Along with some friends I intervened and made sure both sides lost their war. As soon as peace was established we paved the way for a new future, a future of lasting peace. Although the ideals behind our new society are sound we still are fighting those who want to disrupt that peace." Heero told Kira

"There are always people who want to fight wars because they never learn from the wars in the past and how miserable they are." Kira said looking at Heero.

"Unfortunately that's true. Mankind is still a fighting animal in essence but we are evolving and we are getting better at suppressing our urge to fight. The people under my command are such people, we only fight when we have to. It's been nine years since I fought my last battle and I had hoped to never fight again. Yet someone out here made the mistake to attack us and get us involved in this war you're fighting." Heero sighed as he looked at Kira's face.

"You want to keep the peace on your side of that anomaly you just talked about." Kira understood what Heero was talking about.

"Right now we should sit down and negotiate with each other in order to make a deal. I want to ask your friend near my wife to bring her to one of your ships so we can talk in a more suitable environment." Heero proposed.

"I'll make sure she will be escorted to the ship where we will start to talk." Kira assured Heero while he opened a channel to the Eternal. Some time later Heero and Relena landed their Gundam on the Eternal where Lacus and Kira awaited them with some soldiers.

"I hope you don't mind us checking you for concealed weapons." Kira said as the men walked up to Heero and Relena.

"Not at all, I would do the same if I were in your shoes." Heero agreed with a smile while he let them check him. As soon as the men confirmed they weren't carrying any weapons the both of them were lead to a room where the four of them sat down.

Aboard the Voltaire General Smith had been monitoring the entire conversation between Heero and Kira and when he saw them leave the position they we're talking with each other he knew they were going to talk some more on the Eternal. He walked up to Isaac.

"I need to borrow the shuttle on this ship. My suit has taken a bit of damage during the last battle." He asked the young officer.

"A bit of damage? That thing is damaged beyond repair. Frankly I wonder how you made it back alive." Isaac said as he got a bit wound up. This general was taking too many risks for his taste.

"I was just lucky." John said as he walked out.

"Where are you going with it." Isaac asked.

"To the Eternal, I know by personal experience that Heero is hard to convince. I'm going to mediate between Kira and Heero." he said as he turned around "Oh, and one thing my name is not John Smith. I decided on that name for as long as I couldn't remember who I was but now I know my real name. It's Treize Kushrenada."

Aboard the Eternal Heero, Relena, Kira and Lacus got acquainted with each other and decided to start negotiating right away.

"Even though your intentions are good we don't know what your real objective is here." Kira grabbed the bull by the horns.

"Our objective is to talk to every faction within this space in order to negotiate a cease fire to start with." Relena started to reveal their objective "If we can get all parties involved in this war to talk I'm confident we can get to some agreement. I'm willing to mediate here for as long as you want me to."

"We don't really need a mediator right here since we already represent the three main factions of the Earth Sphere. Since the collapse of the Plants and the new Heliopolis colony we formed a new alliance." Lacus started to explain the current situation "The Peace Keepers are now in charge of all military ships in this fleet while the Orb representative Cagali Yula Atha is leading the civilians out here. We formed a temporary government out here until we know what is going on back on the Home world. As for the faction we're fighting it's obvious they want to exterminate us. If it hadn't been for that Gundam that warned us we would have been ambushed. We walked right into a trap they had set for us. The Omega force doesn't care about who they kill. They want all of us dead. They hate the coordinators so much that they would kill all of us and those allied with us just to preserve their pure and blue world."

"What do you mean?" Relena asked.

"Well Kira and I are genetically enhanced human beings. We are quite different from naturally conceived people. Because of these genetic enhancements we have enhanced abilities and the naturals envy us for that but in essence we are still as human as they are. Even though we tried to explain that to them some still see us as monsters that should be exterminated. I don't know if you have the same troubles in your universe but this is a problem we need to end. I'm a third generation coordinator and because of that I'm unable to have an enhanced child myself but Kira believes that all third generation coordinators should have children through natural conception. This way our genetic make up will be past down to future generations of mankind and hopefully make us evolve into a new kind of human some day." Lacus explained when suddenly the door opened.

"General Smith what are you doing here?" Kira wondered as he saw the man walk in.

"Well, I know the people you're talking to and I feel like you need someone to mediate in this situation." The man said while Relena looked at Heero wide eyed.

"So, you did survive after all, Treize Kushrenada." Heero revealed the truth about this masked general.

"What did you say?" Kira asked wondering what Heero was talking about.

"Heero just called me by my real name. Until a few hours ago I couldn't remember it until I saw Nataku on the battlefield. How is Wu Fei these days?" Treize answered.

"He's fine but he was right all along about you. Your spirit still roams amongst us and here you are still alive. What happened?" Heero wondered.

"I thought I was dead but when I woke up I thought I was in heaven to find out I was actually in a hospital on the Plants. I couldn't remember anything about who I was and where I came from at the time and for a long time I remained like that. Several days ago when I saw the Virgo's attack us I started to remember bits and pieces of my past. Even though I couldn't put them together right away I did know that the war we were fighting must have ended. Until I saw your suits arrive on the battlefield I wasn't sure who had won. I was glad to find out it was you who won paving the way for Relena to guide the world into total pacifism. But I wonder, why is she here? A leader of a nation should stay at home." Treize told them his story.

"I'm not leading the nation at the moment. I leave that to others who believe in the ideals I still represent while I'm still young. There is so much I want to do first before I will lead the nation again." Relena explained her presence.

"I see, let's hope that the people back home realise what a responsibility you gave them." Treize said as he sat down.

"What's with the mask?" Heero asked.

"This is the reason." Treize said as he took off his mask revealing a big scar running from the right of his forehead down to his left cheek "My wife keeps bugging me about having it removed but I kept it because I thought it would help me remember how I got it."

"Your wife?" Relena asked.

"Well I didn't know who I was and Melinda is a very attractive woman. I fell in love with her the moment we met. If you would meet her you'll understand why. We also have a boy named Dekim although I wonder why I named him that now. It seemed like a good name at the time." Treize explained.

"Yes, we know about you and Dekim Barton. You were married to his daughter Leia. But what made you leave your wife?" Heero asked.

"Operation Meteor, when I found out what it was I fled the colonies and went home in order to warn the Earth and prepare them for the war that was about to come. When I heard that Leia had died I grieved for a while. I wish I could have been there for her when she died. I still wonder why she didn't contact me when she was ill and knew she was going to die." Treize sighed.

"Her father didn't let her. He knew what you were up to." Heero told the man.

"Anyway, all this doesn't explain why you feel like you have to mediate here." Kira interrupted them.

"You're right. Let's just say I want to speed things along since the enemy won't wait to send another swarm of Virgo's out here to destroy us all. I think it would be best if we go on the offensive now. Heero is quite experienced in guerilla tactics and that's what we need in order to take the enemy down to the point of surrender. While we are doing that we can also steal the supplies we need to build and protect the colony we are going to establish here on Mars. But as long as you and Heero can't decide on whether you should trust each other we might be repeating the mistake you once made. You didn't trust Athrun during the last war when he had rejoined Zaft in the hopes of protecting Orb from the inside and when it was almost too late you started to trust him again. I want to prevent such an event here. I would entrust Heero with my life at this moment. I would even entrust him with my wife and son." Treize explained his presence making Kira think about what had happened six years ago.

"You're right, I shouldn't make the same mistake twice. Heero came out here for the same reason I came out here: to protect the peace. But their plan of trying to negotiate with the Omega Force is foolish. They didn't give us a chance to negotiate either even though we had sent messages all over the Earth sphere to come forward and talk to us. We wanted to prevent this war from happening no matter what concessions we had to make." Kira told everyone.

"Then it seems that we haven't got many choices left." Relena started to realise what was going on "We're going to war after all."

"Yes, so it seems." Lacus sighed.

"Kira, I want to propose the following" Heero started "You need supplies to build and feed this colony, right?"

"Yes" Kira nodded

"Well I will send the Mogol back to our space as soon as they have offloaded their supplies here to gather more supplies for as long as necessary but you have to make sure that the shipping line we're about to set up here is secured." Heero proposed.

"We do have a number of warships here that can handle the security of the shipping line but what if the mobile dolls show up here again." Kira wondered.

"Don't you worry about that I have a few mad geniuses with me who will be able to beef up your defending forces right here. Besides I have the feeling we can keep the enemy busy taking out their forces near Earth. When we can decimate their forces they most likely will bolster their defences near Earth making it easier for us to defend Mars with more conventional means." Heero started to explain "We will fight them until they have lost the will to fight any longer. Then we start negotiating with them and make sure all of the mobile dolls are destroyed. You were left with our mess and I want to clean it up."

"What do you mean by your mess?" Kira asked.

"The mobile dolls were created by some mad man who wanted to dehumanise war. Unfortunately a few of those machines may have come with me." Treize took over "Maybe someone else must have found one or more of these machines and started to study them and at some point started to produce them. So Heero's right, it's our mess and we have to clean it up."

"I see" Lacus realised what Heero meant as she looked at him. Heero just looked down wondering why he couldn't have prevented this ahead of time.

"You shouldn't blame yourself." Kira guessed Heero's thoughts "You couldn't know this was going to happen."

"No but still..." Heero sighed as Relena put a hand on his clenched fist smiling at him what made him ease up.

"We can still fix this." Relena said hoping her words wouldn't be in vein.

"Yes we can" Lacus said with a firm voice "We join forces with you and reorganise ourselves."

They all nodded and decided to end this meeting and start to prepare for the next fight.

Heero and Relena left the Eternal accompanied by Treize who requested to come with them so he could meet some old friends.

"I wonder how Une is going to handle this." Relena said to Heero as they were heading to the Enforcer.

"She'll be as surprised as we were and probably get very emotional." Heero told her as he started to prepare to land. Once aboard their ship Lady Une and Mariemaya were awaiting on the flight deck to see if it were true. Trowa was watching from a distance at his wife. As soon as Treize got out of his shuttle Une looked at him wide eyed as she started to cry. Mariemaya was also standing next to her with tears in her eyes.

"Aren't you going to join them?" Heero asked Trowa.

"Not yet, give them some time to catch up. There are a lot of old feelings that are stirred up right now and I'm sure my wife can handle it." Trowa answered with a smile.

"I wonder why he wanted to come with you. I killed him or so I thought." Wu Fei said.

"Maybe he just wants to see what happened to us after all these years." Zechs pointed out making everyone nod as they looked at the scene in the mobile suit bay.

"Treize, is it really you?" Lady Une asked him.

"In the flesh." He answered as he embraced her and then saw Mariemaya in whom he recognised some features of his first wife "and who is this young lady?"

"This is Mariemaya Kushrenada, your daughter." Lady Une introduced Mariemaya to him.

"My...daughter." Treize said as he looked at Mariemaya with wide eyes.

"Yes, it seems that you left your first wife with a bun in the oven." Une said with a smile "I've taken care of her once we found out about her. We even have confirmation she is your daughter."

"So you're my daughter." Treize said as he turned to Mariemaya and walked up to her and embraced her as she started cry in his arms.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you." He tried to comfort her "but I didn't know I had a daughter."

"Grandfather didn't let mum tell you about me. And when the war had finished he used me to take over the world. If it hadn't been for uncle Trowa and his friends we wouldn't live the peaceful life we have been living untill now." Mariemaya told him as she dried her tears.

"I thought your uncle was dead?" Treize wondered.

"So everyone thought but he's right over there." she said pointing at the man who named himself Trowa Barton these days.

"That man is someone else." Treize remembered his former brother in law.

"I know but since he took on that name it was easy for me to make sure that the entire Barton foundation would be run by someone I could trust. Since the day I confirmed he was my uncle I kept calling him that. At home I usually call him dad." Mariemaya explained the situation.

"Dad?" Treize asked as he looked at Trowa.

"Yes," Lady Une said "Since we believed you were dead I adopted Mariemaya after we got rid of Dekim. Since then she has been calling me mum. A few years later I married Trowa after a short dating period because we were expecting a baby. And since then she has been calling him dad. To the general public he is her uncle but in more private situations he is her father."

"And a good one at that although bringing her out here doesn't sound as good parenting." Treize disapproved Mariemaya's presence on the Enforcer.

"It wasn't my first choice either but she is just like you, very convincing." Lady Une explained why Mariemaya was there with them.

"I wanted to help out in this situation. Besides mum won't let me take any risks out here. She keeps a good eye on me." Mariemaya tried to tell her father "I am able to help. One day I hope to take over from her as the chief Preventer. I am already training at the Preventer academy."

"Preventers?" Treize wondered.

"Yes, a military force with the task to prevent armed disputes." Une said as they started walking to the others waiting in the briefing room. Once inside he walked over to Wu Fei first.

"Well, Wu Fei we meet again. I thought I was never going to meet you again." Treize held out his hand which Wu Fei shook after some hesitating "but it is good to see you again."

"I'm surprised you're still alive but I'm also glad to have this chance to see you again." Wu Fei replied while Treize turned to Trowa.

"I'm glad you have taken care of the two people close to me until now and I hope you will keep doing that in the future." Treize said as he shook the younger man's hand.

"So you don't mind me stealing your girlfriend?" Trowa asked.

"Not at all. I remarried myself out here. I didn't really remember her at the time. But seeing her again also explains why I was attracted to my wife." Treize answered as he turned to Mariemaya "We also have a son. If it had been up to his mother he would have been born as a coordinator but I convinced her otherwise. Even though he was conceived naturally he can pass as a coordinator. He has the same abilities as most of them."

"How does my stepmother look?" Mariemaya asked.

"She'll be here soon." Treize answered as he walked over to greet Duo, Quattre, Sally, Lucrezia and finally Zechs "It's good to see you old friend. I missed our talks about how to achieve peace and how to make sure we would keep the peace."

"Well, I've missed those talks too." Zechs acknowledged while Dorothy came in.

"Dorothy, you're here too." Treize said as he looked at his niece "How are you?"

"I'm fine," she said with tears in her eyes "Are you all right? Is it really you?"

"Yes it's me" Treize said as he embraced her and then he noticed the ring on her finger "You're married, who did you marry?"

"This guy over here" she said as she walked over to Quattre "We met during the last weeks of the war and we had quite a dispute to settle but in the end he convinced me that I was mistaken. When we met again after the war things somewhat spiralled out of control and we ended up marrying each other. It was until now the happiest day of my life. The only thing that would make our happiness complete now is a child."

"Yeah, but this is hardly the time or place to be thinking about that." Quattre pointed out.

"You're right" Dorothy said as she embraced him "We can get to it when this war is over."

Everybody agreed with her and then they started to talk about their next move in this war. At some point in the middle of the planning Heero was told by Rasheed that a shuttle had docked with their ship with the request to let Mrs Smith and her son aboard. Heero agreed to it. A few minutes later a woman and a five year old boy walked in making everyone but Treize look at her with surprised faces. When the woman looked around she looked surprised at Lady Une.

"They could be twins." Duo broke the ice.

"Definitely" Sally agreed.

"This is my wife Melinda." Treize introduced her to everyone "She used to be a Zaft officer until we got married."

"I see now why you were attracted to her even though you didn't know who you were at the time." Lady Une said as she walked up to Treize's wife "I'm Lady Une a former friend of your husband."

"Hello, nice to meet you." Melinda said as she shook Une's hand confirming the woman she talked to was real "Who created you?"

"Honey, she's not a coordinator. As a matter of fact I met her before I met you. I know who I used to be before I met you now." Treize stepped in

"She looks just like me. Am I her replacement?" she asked him.

"Actually the the two of you are exactly the same. You both have the same looks and the same personality." Treize said "That's probably why I married you and don't think I will leave you for her. She's married herself now to someone else."

"He's telling the truth." Lady Une said as she reached for Trowa who had joined them "This is my husband and we have a boy back home waiting for us."

Melinda then eased up a little as she looked at Trowa.

"You got your memory back, John?" she asked her husband.

"Yes, but my real name isn't John it's Treize Kushrenada. I happened to have been married before but my first wife died very young. She left me a daughter I never knew about behind" Treize said as Mariemaya walked up to them "This is my daughter Mariemaya."

"Nice to meet you, Melinda." Mariemaya said as she shook hands with her.

"You are John's, excuse me, Treize's daughter." Melinda corrected herself as she looked at the red haired girl who resembled her father a lot "This is your brother then, his name is Dekim."

"He was named after my grandfather, let's hope he doesn't grow up to be like him." Mariemaya remembered her twisted grandfather.

"What do you mean?" Melinda asked.

"I'll tell you all about it after we're finished here. Feel free to join in, we could use your input as well. Mariemaya why don't you take Dekim somewhere else. We will fill you in later." Treize proposed.

"Sure father," Mariemaya said in excitement to spend some time with her little brother "I'll give him the tour of the ship. You want to come with me?"

The little boy agreed and then they walked out as the grown ups continued planning.

"Hello mum, why did you ask us over?" Candy asked as she entered the bridge on the Archangel.

"I was worried to be honest, only a week since the three of you left this ship and the only thing I can think about is: Will I see them again?" Murue said as she hugged them.

"Yeah especially after what happened today." Joe said as he looked at Candy "Somehow Candy got boxed in and if it hadn't been for Mariemaya she'd be gone."

"That's why I asked you over. This Lady Une, what kind of a person is she?" the admiral asked.

"Well we didn't really get the time to really get to know her. But as far as I know she was a bit surprised by our age. She said something what sounded like: why do we always find kids on a battlefield? I wonder why she bothered asking that question since her own daughter is one of their pilots too." Helen reported.

"She asked herself that question just because her daughter is a pilot." Joe told Helen "You should have seen the look on her face when Mariemaya walked over to us to introduce herself to us. She felt sad about having brought her daughter along. But that Mariemaya can sure pilot a mobile suit. She told us that her suit has special shield modules making it possible to protect others from getting harmed. She said this way she can protect anyone under attack. Just like when she protected Candy."

"Yeah, she did a great job saving her fat ass." Helen said making Candy look away in anger.

"Hey stop that nonsense." Murue barked at Helen "She isn't fat at all. Actually she's perfect the way she is. You are the one who should watch your weight, you're getting too thin for my liking. I wonder if you still eat well. Sorry kids but right now I'm not in the mood for your bickering."

"It's all right mum" Candy said as she looked at her mother "I'm getting used to her rudeness, it's just who she is. I'd like to talk about this Relena, from what I heard she's an advocate of total pacifism but how can she advocate this while piloting a mobile suit?"

"From what Kira told me it's an ideal she proposes but she also is realist enough that this can only happen if the people really want this whole heartedly. Even though she used to live by the principle of discarding weapons she found out the hard way that sometimes peace can only be attained by fighting off those who believe in peace at the end of a gun. Then you have to wonder what kind of peace would you want?" Murue said as she looked at Candy.

"So living peacefully is a choice." Joe stated "So this means we can choose to fight when we feel that someone would like to put a gun at our head to tell us that there will be peace but only if we do as they tell us to"

"What kind of peace would that bring?" Candy wondered.

"More Wars" Admiral Ramius answered.

"This idea of total pacifism isn't new but the principles of the ideal are hard to follow as long as there are people who want to fight." Mu spoke up "I think that Relena had some kind of wake up call at some point and decided to become a mobile suit pilot herself in order to fight for what she believes in. She could be a pacifist at heart but reality must have changed her mind about not resisting to anyone who would threaten her or the people she loves."

"It would be wonderful if we could create such a world" Candy said as she looked at Captain LaFlaga "Then children like us wouldn't exist. We would be normal teenagers like all others."

"I know how you feel Candy" Murue said as she embraced her while the girl tried to hold back her tears. Joe and Helen didn't know what to do with themselves either because they knew Candy had a point.

"Sorry Ma'am," a bridge officer interrupted "urgent message from the chief Peace Keeper. You and Captain LaFlaga are ordered to the Eternal."

"On our way" Mu sighed as he hugged the teenagers and then started to leave while Murue told them she'd be back as soon as possible.

Heero, Relena and Treize were returning to the Eternal as asked by Kira since he wanted to introduce them to some people. Heero wondered why Kira wanted them to meet these people. Treize told him that it was necessary to know for him who was dealing with. Once aboard the Eternal they were brought to the briefing room where a number of people had gathered.

"Welcome back Heero and Relena," Lacus greeted them "the people you see here are the actual Peace Keeper core. All the people under their command are also members of our organisation but no core members. First let me introduce you to our political members. This is Chairwoman Eileen Canavour of the Plant council and this young lady is Cagali Yula Atha chief representative of the Orb union and leader of the Neutral nations union. This is council member Azalea Jewel in charge of defence on the Plants and this is our newest member Federation representative Frederick Jones. Now for the military people, this is Admiral Murue Ramius and her husband Captain Mu LaFlaga in command of the Archangel, these two are Commander Myrialia Hawe and Commander Deearka Elmsman in command of the Diane. Next we have Lieutenant Commander Meirin Hawk in command of the Hood and her sister Commander Lunamaria Hawk the pilot of the Impulse. This is Commodore Andrew Waltfelt in command of the Eternal and Vice Admiral Athrun Zala in command of the mobile suit forces aboard this ship. This young man is Captain Isaac Jewel, commander on the Voltaire and then we have mobile suit pilot Lieutenant Shin Asuka he pilots the Destiny. We finish our introduction with Admiral Howard McKenzie the commander of the Federation fleet out here with us. We still have a few other members but they are still on Earth and probably in trouble and others too busy with other duties around the fleet."

"Nice to meet with you all. I'm Relena Dorlian-Yui and this is my husband Heero Yui, we're the ones in charge of the Peace Keeper Project in the service of the Earth Sphere united Nations. " Relena greeted them all as she reached out a hand. All the people gathered there shook hands with Relena and Heero. Treize was standing near the door and was about to step out when Athrun stopped him.

"General where do you think you're going?" Athrun asked him.

"Well this is a core meeting and I don't belong here." Treize said as he looked at the young man.

"Actually," Kira started as he came closer "we want to make you a core member since you already have the kind of freedom to do as you please within Zaft. Every member of the core can do within their own organisation as they see fit. Off course you'd still have to report to us. What would you say to that."

"Even though I'm flattered I respectfully have to decline your offer. I like the way you do things around here but I have a responsibility as the leader of an elite mobile suit team in the service of Zaft. If we'd become members of the Peace Keepers another team will be formed to take over from us and they could be used the same way my unit was used for the assassination attempt on Lacus Cline. No thank you" Treize declined.

"I understand your point but over the past few years you've done as you promised the council." the chairwoman came closer "You said you would turn this unit into an elite unit that would have the possibility to turn down orders. On several occasions we asked you to do something like spying on the Artemis construction or to find out what the Peace Keepers were hiding from the council. Every time Council member Jewel and I were happy to see you decline whereas the other members were agitated and decided to send another unit instead. With no success off course. I intend to make sure no other unit like the 'Space Bulls' will be formed as long as you're in charge or a successor who sticks to the principles you teach them these days. You were considered the hidden Peace Keeper within our forces. I suggested you to Kira when I was sure of you and your team. That's why I gave you the freedom to do as you please with your unit." Treize couldn't believe his ears as he listened to the chairwoman. All along they wanted him to do the job they couldn't do within the council. Protect and keep the peace while protecting the Peace Keeper project. He then turned to Kira and then he spoke up.

"I'll join you but I do have some conditions, first I have the right to decline orders, second I choose every member in my team and last I don't want to be questioned when I act as I see fit to a situation even if you don't like what I'm about to do." Treize told them.

"I can live with those conditions." Kira said with a smile "But when you're about to act as you see fit at whatever situation comes along I want to be informed. This way I can make sure you're protected from whatever repercussions that may follow your actions. You see, I need to be able to deal with the fallout."

"I understand, sir" Treize said as he walked along with Kira back to a seat. Then Lacus told everyone to take a seat since she was going to tell everybody about the plans they had been making regarding the situation with the fleet and how to fight back. Relena announced that she also had some plans to discuss with them in order to work together.

On the Hood Lieutenant Halliburton was looking out the windows wondering about the next step to take. He then sat down in the captain's chair making all officers around him look at him with wide eyes.

"What? Lieutenant Commander Hawk did put me in charge didn't she?" He reaffirmed the orders "the moment she's back her seat is available again but for the moment it's my job to act as your captain."

"Sir, will we be assigned a new Captain?" an ensign asked.

"I don't think so but we should clean the quarters of our previous captain's personal belongings." the young man said as he looked at two junior crewmen standing around on the bridge "Why don't you two get to it and deliver all his belongings to storage."

"Yes, sir" they said as they got to it. Lieutenant Halliburton looked around as he thought about the loss of their captain.

"Sir, do you think the XO will be promoted to captain?" another officer asked him.

"Probably, and when they do I expect you guys to support her fully. If it weren't for her the lot of you wouldn't be here any more and I had to be reassigned. It was her actions here on this bridge that saved your asses, remember that if you feel like disobeying her." He snapped at them. He had seen how the Hood had been surrounded by these mobile dolls and how her actions got the ship out again taking several of these machines with it. He believed she should stay in command since she knew what she was doing out on a battlefield. She did learn from the best: Captain Gladys of the Zaft Forces, Commodore Waltfelt former Zaft officer and Admiral Ramius former Federation officer. She handled herself well during the last battles and made sure as many pilots as possible had returned safely. His eye fell on a small object he found on the floor. He picked it up and saw it was a coloured contact lens. He immediately contacted the crewmen in the captain's quarters to wait with packing his stuff until he was with them. Then he contacted the medical bay if they had the captain's body still aboard which the doctor confirmed. He ordered the doctor to perform a DNA test on the body. Everyone on the bridge looked at him wondering what was going on. He left the bridge ordering them to inform him if something would happen and when the XO returned to send her to the captain's quarters. He needed to scratch an itch he claimed.

While he was heading for the medical bay a lot of things were going through his mind but it started to make sense why the captain gave out these ridiculous orders during the battle at the Plants. He wanted to make sure the Hood had been downed before it could even make a name for itself. Five years of planning, dealing and building this ship down the drain in just a few hours. It wasn't supposed to hook up with the Peace Keepers. When he entered the medical bay he looked for the doctor.

"Well Doc, did you start the DNA test?" he asked when he found him.

"Yes, we should have the results in an hour. Why?" the doctor wondered these orders.

"Because of this" The lieutenant said as he showed the doctor the coloured contact lens.

"You think...?" the doctor said as he walked up to the body and opened the eyelids one by one pulling another contact lens "Could this man be an Omega force agent?"

"I'm sure of it. It didn't make any sense why an experienced officer like him would order a ship right into the middle of the enemy forces until I found this contact lens." the lieutenant confirmed his suspicions.

"Is there any other evidence to back up your claim." the doctor asked.

"No,but I hope to find it with the XO in his office or his quarters." He said when suddenly the bridge called in that the XO had just landed on the Hood and was on her way to the captain's quarters. He then left the medical bay and went to the captain's quarters himself. When he got there the crewmen and Lieutenant Commander Hawe were waiting for him.

"I'm sorry commander but I think we had a spy on board." He told Meirin who looked at him surprised "I think the captain wasn't the man we thought him to be. I'd like to search these quarters with you."

"What made you think about that?" Meirin asked him.

"I found a coloured contact lens on the bridge near the captain's chair. Quite by chance actually but it started to raise some questions so I ordered a DNA test to make sure. The doctor found another lens on the body so now we should start here to find out whether I am correct or not." Jason told her.

"Ok, I see that you two were already cleaning up these quarters, have you found something of interest?" Meirin asked the crewmen who shook their heads. Meirin then walked into the quarters and she started to look through the place together with the lieutenant and the crewmen.

"Commander, over here..." one of the crewmen said as she looked into an opened drawer. When Meirin and Jason joined her they found a file marked 'Top Secret' in it. Meirin picked it out and opened it.

"These are the orders sent to Captain Rhodes about where he was supposed to go to after take off but he took off early and met us at sector 13 instead of sector 15 as ordered here. He had these orders all along." Meirin said as she read the file.

"Ma'am, here is another file." the crewman picked up a file from underneath a book in the drawer. It was also marked 'Top Secret' which the crewman handed to Meirin. She read through it and found a lot of data on some project called coordinator apocalypse. It outlined the total destruction of the Plants and the elimination of all coordinators on Earth and in space. It would also eliminate all coordinator sympathisers. One of the places they would destroy was Orb.

"They had this planned to the last detail, only they had hoped to get their hands on the Hood before it would take off. Fortunately for us they weren't able to get it in time." Meirin said to the lieutenant as she read on.

"So the premature launch crossed their plans and they decided to send in their swarms." Jason said as he picked up a book from which a few papers fell. He picked them up and read them.

"These are orders from his Omega Force friends, even though written in code I can decipher from it they were thinking about stealing the Hood in order to use it to attack the plants disguising as Federation officers and then take out New Heliopolis before taking out Artemis. But once the Hood was finished a month ahead of schedule they weren't ready to steal it so they took steps to insure the Hood wouldn't make it out to space which almost didn't happen since the launch bay could have been sabotaged. Fortunately we stopped the saboteurs hours before the launch." Jason told Meirin "We figured they were with the Omega Force so we locked them up in order to interrogate them but before we were able to do that they were found dead in their cell. I wondered what happened to them but I think that our captain had something to do with it."

"Well, this isn't how I figured my first day as Captain of this ship would start out" Meirin sighed as she gathered the files and letters. A few moments later the Doctor asked them to come to the medical bay. They got over there as fast as they could and once they had entered the medical bay the doctor was awaiting them with the results of the DNA test and he told them that the man on his slab was not the Captain but someone else. He couldn't tell who this guy was.

Aboard the Archangel Joe,Helen and Candy were preparing themselves to return to the Hood.

"Hey, I heard Lieutenant Halliburton is going to be reassigned to the Kusanagi. Any ideas why?" Helen asked.

"You got me..." Joe answered.

"I heard we are getting a new commanding officer. I wonder who." Candy told them when the door to the changing room opened and Admiral Ramius walked in. She looked at the three of them with a smile and then she walked up closer to them.

"Hello kids, I've got something to tell you. You're returning to the Hood under the command of Lady Une. Heero has assigned her to the Hood to support Meirin who is now captain of the ship. The lieutenant you served under has been reassigned to the Kusanagi in order to protect a soon to be set up shipping line to the Earth Sphere United Nations. According to Heero there is a gateway in space which leads to an alternate reality which is similar to our own. I wonder how that reality looks like since they seem to be at peace for nine years already by trying to uphold the principles of total pacifism. Off course according to Relena it isn't always easy to uphold these principles but they keep trying until they get it right. As soon as the war is over we might be able to negotiate an alliance with their Preventer forces in order to help us protect the peace from their side of the gateway." Murue told them while she handed them their orders. A few minutes later they were told that two Gundams had landed on the Archangel. They all walked out of the room and headed towards the flight deck to welcome the pilots of these machines. When they got there the Vayate and the Mercurius were standing there while Lady Une and Mariemaya were walking up to Admiral Ramius and her children. Murue walked up to Lady Une with a smile.

"So we're finally meeting each other face to face. How do you do?" Admiral Ramius greeted Une.

"I'm fine, thank you" Une responded "I'm also glad to meet you in person. Your kids are very proud of you. They told me lot about all of your exploits to date. To be honest I was impressed by what you already achieved as an officer. Let's hope we can add finishing this war to that list of achievements."

"We will but I had hoped we could have met under different circumstances." Murue sighed as she looked at all the teenagers standing together "Our children shouldn't be out there fighting. They should be doing the usual teenage stuff."

"I agree, but I couldn't convince Mariemaya to stay home. She made a good argument about why she should be here too." Une agreed.

"I wonder what your rank is. You said you were the chief Preventer wouldn't that make you a Fleet Admiral?" Murue asked.

"As chief Preventer... yes but as a Peace Keeper I'm holding the same rank as you. Actually all of us Gundam pilots hold that rank. We're the elite of the elite within our forces. In our daily lives we all have quite different occupations. Heero is a computer specialist, Duo is a scrap salvager, Trowa used to be an acrobat but became a teacher at the Preventer Academy, Quattre is the CEO of the Winner foundation, Wu Fei works for me as a Preventer, Mariemaya is a student at the Academy, Relena is our foreign minister, Dorothy our defence minister, Sally is also a Preventer but at the moment she works as a doctor since she has recently given birth to a lovely daughter, Noin is my colleague on Mars and then there is Zechs who is the governor of Mars. So you see we're not an ordinary military unit." Une explained.

"I wonder how you guys can be piloting these machines so well. You do need to train for this." Murue replied

"We have been secretly training but no one knows back home since we kept our unit a secret until we were needed and here we are now." Une told Murue who smiled at Une.

"I know my children will be in safe hands with you but I wonder if it wouldn't be better if we left them here with the civilian fleet." Murue told Une.

"From what I hear these kids are very well trained and ready to do this without getting themselves killed. I intend to keep them on a secondary defence line but I can't guarantee they won't do any fighting." Une said.

"They aren't average kids, they were turned into something else by use of drugs and cybernetic implants. They need special maintenance in order to live somewhat of a normal life. They were created as weapons until we were handed them by the president of the North Atlantic Federation. His army found these kids in a hidden bunker somewhere in North America. At first every time they got out of the machines that maintain them they had forgotten everything that would have happened the day before. They could only remember their training and their machines. Thanks to some scientists we were able to give them memories although it isn't a perfect solution." Murue said as she looked at her children.

"You didn't create us, mum" Candy said as she hugged Murue "It was Logos who made us, you just gave us back what was taken from us. Now we should go, we need to get to the Hood before nap time."

"Is it that time again?" Murue wondered as she looked at her watch. "It seems it is. Well I suppose then we see each other again after we leave for Earth."

Murue hugged all three of them and then they all got into their mobile suit and took off. Mu walked on to the flight deck where he comforted his wife who was crying.

Aboard the Eternal Kira had received Meirin's report on the imposter they had aboard the Hood. He was looking at Lacus who was surprised that the Omega Force had been able to infiltrate the Peace Keepers. Kira realised that maybe there could be other Omega agents hidden all over the fleet. He ordered all the Peace Keepers to monitor all outgoing communication and filter all communication logs to find some message sent to any other frequency than the usual frequencies used by the different factions. He hoped that this way someone within the Omega Force could be found amongst them. Once they had found that person he was going to ask that person to tell him everything he knows about them.

Lady Une and her charges were nearing the Hood where she asked permission to board ship. Once they all had landed the teenagers gathered around Lady Une who was welcomed by Lieutenant Halliburton.

"So Ms Une, you're going to replace me on this ship." he said with a smile " Although I wouldn't have mind serving with you. The reassignment to the Kusanagi is a bit of a speed bump in my career but orders are orders."

"First of all it's Lady Une, and second the Kusanagi may only be assigned to escort duty but they could use a man with your skills. I've heard your quite a mobile suit pilot." Une told him with a smile.

"Hey kids will you make sure that I have a ship to come back to once this crisis is over." He said goodbye to them as he walked over to his Silver Striker.

"We will, lieutenant." Candy said while she blushed.

"Is she falling for the lieutenant." Joe whispered to Helen who nodded with a smile. Mariemaya looked at Candy with a lesser amused face. She couldn't understand why a girl her age would fall in love with a man almost twice as old as herself. She was probably heading for a lot of heartache.

"Hey, isn't it time for a nap now?" Helen asked her sister and brother.

"Unfortunately it is." Joe said with a sad face.

"Time to dream." Candy said with a smile while she followed the other two off the mobile suit deck. Lady Une and Mariemaya decided to join them into the dressing room where they took off their flight suit and changed into their uniforms. Once they had changed Meirin was waiting at the door ordering the three teenagers under her care to report to the lab.

"Sorry for this but we have to get acquainted while I'm going to put them to bed for a while." Meirin excused herself as she followed the teenagers to the lab.

"I'm Lady Une" Une introduced herself "I'm glad to meet the youngest captain in this fleet."

"Meirin Hawk, I'm not to sure if I can do this. The crew is green, I just got to get to know the ship when we were attacked. I'm glad to finally have an experienced officer I can turn to in time of need by my side." Meirin explained her situation as they got to the lab where the girls were changing into nightgowns whereas Joe just put on his boxers and laid down on one of the three special beds that were designed for them. As soon as the girls had laid themselves down the small domes above them came down starting the maintenance procedure.

"Are their memories backed up?" Meirin asked the man in charge of their maintenance cycle.

"Yes ma'am. They have been backed up ready to upload at wake up." he answered as he looked at Meirin who nodded at him.

"What kind of a machine is this?" Mariemaya asked in disgust.

"Well this is how we found them five years ago. This machine is what keeps them alive. At first we wanted to let them die but Kira said that it wouldn't make us any different from those who created them in the first place. So we made copies of the machines we found them in and started to study them. After a few weeks someone found out a way against the so called reboot. Every time they went back in there they lost all memory about what they had experienced the day before and everything was new again to them. It was like a computer reboot. We decided to find a way to give them memories and ended up backing all their experiences into a computer. That mainframe over there is one of their memory storages. We have build six of them in different locations. They can retrieve any memory they have but once these computers are damaged they loose their memories again. Well not fully any more since frequently used memories somehow stay with them these days. When they wake up they might not remember you right away but they will remember who I am." Meirin explained to Mariemaya "When they wake up we upload the most recent memories into their brain and then they are able to pick up where they left off before they went in there. We were also able to give them their dreams back. Now they can at least have a normal sleeping cycle, well what one can call normal."

"But when you talk to them they seem so normal." Une said.

"They seem normal but they are far from normal." Meirin said as she typed for a few seconds bringing up an image of one of the kids showing the implants they had received as children "Drugs and implants were used to change them into formidable pilots as good as the average coordinator in a mobile suit or even surpass them. Candy for instance is almost as good as Commander Jewel and he is an ace pilot. There are only three pilots that surpass his skills in a mobile suit. We just gave them the ability to lead a life as normal as we could possibly provide. Once they are going out on the battlefield they turn off their emotions and become the weapons they were intended to be. We gave them that choice. Candy wishes to be an engineer some day whereas Helen wants to be a dancer. Joe actually wants to become a soldier since he thinks that's where he belongs. He hopes to become the perfect soldier some day."

"The perfect soldier? I know what that will bring. The kind of soldier that does everything his superiors tell him to, even kill themselves if asked." Une remembered the day that Heero blew himself and his Gundam up.

"What do you mean?" Meirin asked.

"Well ten years ago I was in command of an operation to to take down the Gundam pilots who were disrupting all the plans we had made to achieve peace. Off course it wasn't the kind of peace Relena is still trying to achieve now so the Gundams fought back. When I thought I had them cornered Heero's mentor surrendered but he told me he wasn't going to surrender his Gundam. The next thing I knew was Heero blowing up himself and his Gundam. He almost died there and then. At the time he was the perfect soldier who followed all the orders given to him. After that event he changed little by little until the last battle he fought to keep the peace we already achieved. Nowadays he is what we consider the complete soldier. A soldier that thinks for himself on the battlefield and acts according the situation to do what he thinks is the right solution to maintain a peaceful life. That's why we will follow him to hell and back if he asks us to." Une explained.

"A man that gets this kind of respect from the people he has under his command must be very charismatic." Meirin said "But he doesn't look like that kind of man. From what I heard he believes in the principles of total pacifism. Don't you think that is a bit strange?"

"To you maybe, but we all believe in the world Relena has envisioned for us. To us Heero is the protector of that world. We may believe in a peaceful world but we still keep the peace with weapons in hand because there are still those who want to destroy that peaceful life so they can control the people in that world." Une sighed making Meirin look at her with a sad face realising what Une tried to tell her.

"Kira has the same dreams but we are also keeping the peace with weapons in hand." Meirin said as she looked at the three teenagers who were fast asleep "Wouldn't it be great if we could just live in peace with one and other. In such a world we wouldn't need any weapons."

Lady Une and Mariemaya nodded as they all left the laboratory.

Aboard the Peace Enforcer Heero and Treize were walking up to the mobile suit bay where they entered moments later.

"I heard your mobile suit was nearly destroyed in the last battle. We happened to have a spare suit aboard this ship, there it is" Heero said as he pointed at the Tallgeese. Treize looked at it in surprise and he looked back at Heero.

"You want me to pilot it again?" he asked as he looked back at it.

"This suit suits you better then any of the other suits here in the fleet. Why don't you take it out for a spin." Heero offered.

"It seems somewhat similar to the one I piloted." Treize said.

"So it seems, but this one is equipped with a nuclear engine. It has also a Zero system aboard but it can only be activated when you wish to." Heero told Treize.

"Wait a minute, the Zero system isn't self activating?" Treize asked.

"That's right" Heero said.

"That way we don't need to master it but this machine is also useless when you get into...are all Gundams equipped with nuclear engines?" Treize suddenly realised something.

"Yes they are." Heero answered

"That means you have N-jammer cancellers. How did you think up this technology?" Treize asked.

"Well we came up with a device that we could use to stop nuclear weapons, missiles more precisely. In order to keep our engines running we needed a technology that could cancel it out." Heero explained.

"I can't believe it. Two different realities and yet the same technologies have been invented in them, though it was invented a in different order. First they had the N-jammers then the mobile suits here. While in our reality we had the mobile suits first and then the N-jammers. Also here the great war had ended after all these technologies had been invented whereas we first finished the war without the N-jammers and N-jammer cancellers." Treize started to realise how similar the realities he has lived in were. The door to the mobile suit bay opened and Melinda came in with a few papers in hand.

"Hello Melinda what's up?" Treize asked.

"Well I asked Lady Une for a comparative DNA test and the results are right here. We could be twins. We have exactly the same DNA. Come to think of it I would like to think of her as a sister. How would you feel about that?" Melinda asked.

"I wouldn't mind." Treize answered "Thinking of her as my sister in law would be great. But the question is how would she feel about it?"

"We can answer that question later." Heero joined the conversation "but first we need to survive this war, don't we?"

"You're right" Melinda agreed as she looked at the Gundams in the bay "My, these are impressive. I used to pilot a Zacoo myself but these days I develop new types of mobile suits. The Avenger prototype was almost complete when we were attacked."

"The Avenger was almost similar to the Taurus design. Like that one over there" Treize said pointing at the Raging Taurus "I bet this is Noin's suit."

"You're right" Heero said "We designed this for her since she was unbeatable in a Taurus suit."

"My God, this is so similar to the Avenger we were building. Has it variable geometry?" Melinda asked

"Yes, why?" Heero answered.

"Well the Orb forces Warasami's were the inspiration for the Avenger design. And here is a Gundam type machine exactly as we had envisioned for a mass production type." Melinda said as she kept looking at the Raging Taurus "Can I pilot it after the war is over. Just to get a feel of how it handles. We never got to the test phase and if I could bring back some test data from this machine I might be able to see if our machine will be as good as this one. Probably not but we can't get it right the first time, can we?"

"I'll see what I can do." Heero told her "But until then I want you to start helping out maintaining these machines."

"Thank you, sir" she saluted making Heero a bit uneasy.

"We're not military." Heero said "Most of us officers are civilians who just happened to be part of an organisation who wants to protect the peace by any means necessary. You don't have to salute on this ship, besides we don't believe in military structures."

They all left the bay talking about their jobs on the Peace Enforcer.

**Earth, North Atlantic federation capitol.**

The president was looking over the latest reports coming in from all over the earth sphere about these new machines and how quickly they destroyed the incomplete Artemis station, the New Heliopolis colony, the Boaz II fortress and the Plants. He wasn't happy about this all since he had not too many defences left if these guys would turn against Earth. He had mailed to other leaders in the world about the threat that was probably coming to them. The Earth based Peace Keepers had assured him that they had a few surprises left for the enemy. He wondered what these surprises could be and started to think about the Nibelungen shield he had build all over the federation and its allies countries. There were even ships that had a umbrella shield matrix to protect most of the coastal cities from orbital attacks but even with those defences he wondered how long he could hold the enemy back. A few minutes later there was a knock on his door. He invited the person on the other end of the door in. A Peace Keeper Colonel walked in and greeted the President.

" Mr President, I was sent here by my superiors to ask if we could get access to the Alliance's Nibelungen system in order to coordinate them with our ground to space weapons based on the genesis project. A number of neutral countries have allowed us to build them in their countries. We even have ships with smaller versions of this weapon deployed all over the world to stop a possible invasion. If we can work together we may be able to hold them off for a while." The colonel explained his presence.

"Funny you ask for that since I was about to suggest the same. I've talked about this with the joined chiefs of Staff who agreed to this and since we know that the Omega forces are behind the attacks in space we should help one and other. Especially since we are the ones they hope to ally themselves with. Up until now they haven't attacked any of our space troops while the other nations were under attack but what about the Eurasian forces?" he wondered.

"They have deployed their umbrella shielding systems worldwide as a defence measure. They are even producing new shield emitters as we speak to send over to you. There is already a shipment on the way to New York to distribute all over the country to fill up the gaps within your defences." the Peace Keeper told him making him smile. He had the feeling that if all the forces in the world would work together the Omega forces would have a hard time getting their invasion on the ground.


End file.
